When Brittany Palomo was hired as a nurse in March, her parents tried to talk her out of it for fear of the rapidly spreading corona virus. After all, she told them to start the life she had long dreamed of.
The epidemic is a dream – it has now killed and counted 300,000 lives in the United States.
“Get up, my little girl, get up!” Palomo’s mother, Maria Palomo Salinas, screamed as her daughter died of COVID – 19 complications at around 2am on a Saturday in late November, echoing her grief via Harlingon Hospital in Texas.
Palomo, 27, as a health worker, may be a few weeks away from getting a new vaccine that can protect her from the virus. Instead, he became another victim of the relentless explosion, which is increasing the number of Americans as they grasp another round-the-clock sign.
“The numbers are staggering – the most effective respiratory infection we have experienced in more than 102 years since the Spanish flu of 1918,” said Dr. Anthony Fossi, the government’s top epidemiologist, just days before the United States reached the milestone.
The United States crossed the 300,000 mark on the same day that the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history began, Health workers rolled up their shirts for the COVID-19 shots on Monday.
From data provided by health officials across the United States, it is believed that the actual death toll from Johns Hopkins University is much higher because the corona virus is not accurately recorded in the early stages of death. Crisis.
It took four months for the virus to gain its first 100,000 American lives. But the cold weather is driving people inside, where the virus spreads so easily, many states are reluctant to require masks for months, and as crowds increase over the holiday season, some public health experts estimate that 100,000 could die by the end of January.
“You can certainly feel like standing on the beach and measuring the tsunami in the sand,” says Dr. Leon Kelly, the coroner of El Paso County, Colorado, and its deputy medical director for the general public, both dead and living. Department of Health.
Already, the death toll in the United States stands against the population of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. This figure is equivalent to repeating a tragedy on the scale of Hurricane Katrina every day for 5 1/2 months.
Compared to the massive mobilization response of U.S. officials after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Jennifer Nusso, Johns Hopkins’ public health researcher, said, “For me, this is an extraordinary failure.
“Think, now our country can absorb 3,000 deaths a day as usual business. It represents a moral failure.”
The United States accounts for 1 in 5 of the world’s confirmed viral deaths, far more than any other country, despite its wealth and medical resources.
As the number of epidemics continues to rise, much has changed since the United States surpassed the 200,000 death toll in late September.
Scientists’ obsessive pursuit of a vaccine finally yields results, beginning with the release of Pfizer’s formula. If the second vaccine is approved soon, as expected, 20 million people could be vaccinated by the end of the month.
At the same time, the country is poised for a major shift after an election, largely due to the Trump administration’s referendum on dealing with the virus. President-elect Joe Biden has made clear his first priority to take office next month, a comprehensive shift in efforts to combat the epidemic.
However, experts say it could take the new year well into the first wave of vaccinations and other precautions to curb cases and deaths. Experts warn that the country will have to steel itself for a deadly winter.
“We are going through the worst period of all the spring, which could lead to fatigue, political opposition, and the loss of all the good wishes we had about people doing their part,” Nuso said.
According to the Govt monitoring program, more than 109,000 people are now in U.S. hospitals, surpassing the 60,000 who filled wards at earlier peaks in April and July.
In a single day last week, the United States recorded more than 3,300 COVID-19 deaths, easier than the heights reached when New York City became the center of attention in April.
Doctors now have more experience in treating patients, and a few medications have been approved to speed recovery. But now the numbers are much wider, reaching out to rural areas and small and medium communities that do not have large urban resources.
In Waterloo, Iowa, Dr. Stacey Marlowe called the wife of an 89-year-old Covit-19 patient in her final hours, not realizing the conversation that the couple’s son had also died of the virus at her hospital. Days before days.
Marlowe, who works in the emergency room at Unity Point Allen Hospital, said: “We see these horror stories every day so they start running together.
In Los Angeles, the county’s director of health, Barbara Ferrer, struggled with tears during a television conference last week, announcing a steep rise in local deaths, averaging 43 each day, compared to a dozen in mid – November.
“More than 8,000 people who were loving members of their families have not returned,” Ferrer said.
In Columbia, South Carolina, the family of Stacy Blackley, a third-grade teacher, asked the school district to announce her death in hopes of forcing the public to take the virus seriously.
“One of the ways we can celebrate his life is that we are committed to constantly caring for each other,” said Greg Little, Superintendent of Schools.
Then the families and colleagues of the health workers are lost to COVID-19, even within the vision of hope.
For several weeks, Dr. James Williams has been listening to the voice of his friend Dr. Juan Fitz, an emergency room physician in Lubbock, Texas.
“I am aerial. I am a cavalryman, ”Fitz, 67, said this summer, describing his role in the epidemic. “I’m going to go through its thickness, be challenged by the situation, find ways to improve and sort things out.”
Died Nov. 3.
“Sorry, it still gets me,” the agitated Williams said Friday, just hours before the first vaccine was approved. With tears in his eyes, he recalled his last text message to Fitz, a soldier-in-scrubs who never responded.
Please know, “You have an army of friends and colleagues pulling for you.”
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Associated Press writers in Columbia, South Carolina and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to the story.