The United States recorded more deaths from COVID-19 in a single day than ever (nearly 3,900) on the same day that the Mafia attack on the Capitol exposed some of the same deep political divisions that have hampered the battle against the pandemic.
The virus is on the rise in several states, and California was hit hard, reporting a total of 1,042 coronavirus deaths in two days on Thursday. The number of cases being shot there threatens to force hospitals to attend rations and essentially decide who lives and who dies.
“People aspire to breathe. People seem to drown when they are in bed right in front of us, ”said Dr. Jeffrey Chien, an emergency physician at the Santa Clara Valley Regional Medical Center, who urged people to do their part to help. to slow the spread. “I beg everyone to help us because we are not the front line. We are the last line “.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans who have achieved their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine rose to at least 5.9 million on Thursday, a one-day gain of about 600,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. of Diseases. Hundreds of millions will have to be vaccinated to stop the coronavirus.
About 1.9 million people worldwide have died from the virus, more than 360,000 in the US alone. December was by far the deadliest month in the country, and health experts warn that January can be even more terrible due to family reunions and holiday travel.
A new, more contagious variant is spreading around the world and in the United States. In addition, it remains to be seen what effect they will have on the spread of the thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump who converged this week in Washington, many of them without masks. of the scourge.
Trump has long downplayed the virus and despised masks, and many of his staunch supporters have followed suit. He has also infuriated the blockades and urged protesters to oppose restrictions in states like Michigan, where armed supporters invaded the state house last spring.
On Wednesday, the day a horde of protesters violated the U.S. Capitol, disrupting efforts to certify the election of Joe Biden, the U.S. recorded 3,865 deaths from viruses, according to Johns Hopkins University. Figures can fluctuate dramatically after holidays and weekends, and the figure is subject to review.
“National terrorists attacked Capitol police in the same way that the virus has been allowed to invade Americans,” said Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translation Institute. “The United States lost control of a Trump-incited mob and a Trump-repressed pandemic virus.”
Some of the forces that contributed to the eruption of violence were partially anticipated by global disease planning experts when they conducted a desktop exercise in 2019, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior academic at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security who led the drill.
“We considered the possibility of active misinformation and using a pandemic for political gain,” Toner said. “Real life turned out to be a lot worse.”
In California, health authorities reported 583 new deaths on Thursday, a day after 459 people died. The overall death toll there stands at more than 28,000. The state also recorded more than a quarter of a million new cases weekly, and Arizona alone is the first in California in cases per resident. Florida broke the record for the highest number of cases in a single day, with more than 19,800, while the death toll reached 22,400.
Los Angeles County, the most populous in the country with 10 million residents, and nearly two dozen more counties, have been essentially left without intensive care beds for patients with COVID-19.
“This is a health crisis of epic proportions,” said Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s director of public health.
Guidelines posted on the Southern California Methodist Hospital website warned: “If a patient becomes extremely ill and is unlikely to survive their illness (even with life-saving treatment), they may be assigned some resources … another patient is more likely to survive “.
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Associated Press writers Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and Tamara Lush in Tampa, Florida, contributed to this report.