The United States has exceeded 4,000 daily deaths due to the coronavirus for the first time, breaking a record set just a day earlier. The Johns Hopkins University count shows that the U.S. died 4,085 on Thursday from COVID-19.
The U.S. also had about 275,000 new cases of coronavirus. More than 365,000 Americans have died from coronavirus since the pandemic began.
The figures are another reminder of the worsening situation after holiday trips and family reunions, as well as more time indoors during the winter months. There has been an increase in cases and deaths in Arizona, Texas and Florida and California, where some hospitals are about to be rationed.
Jae C. Hong / AP
A Los Angeles County hospital is so overflowing with COVID-19 patients that it has now assembled a triage team that would ultimately decide the fate of critically ill patients.
“The hospital system is bent as far as it can bend and the next sound can be instantaneous,” said Cliff Daniels, head of strategy at Southern California Methodist Hospital.
“These are unimaginable decisions that would have to be made to deny care to people who need it because there are no resources available,” he said. “We haven’t reached that stage. We’re at a pace to get there.”
Some hospitals are so packed and patients are sent hundreds of miles away to receive treatment.
State emergency medical services established an oxygen depot in Riverside County to help increase the number of patients with COVID-19, according to CBS Los Angeles. The oxygen tank, consisting of two large oxygen generators that will fill the large tanks used by hospitals, will increase the local oxygen supply.