Vice Mayor Alix Desulme, City of North Miami, raises his arm in prayer for local lives lost to COVID-19, as a memorial to the lost is unveiled at Griffing Park on Oct. 28, 2020 in North Miami, Florida .
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
More than 4,000 people died for the first time from Covid-19 in the United States in one day on Thursday, as the country reports record highs and the outbreak is getting worse by the day.
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the US has reported a record high daily death toll in five of the past ten days. According to a CNBC analysis of Hopkins data, the US reported an average of more than 2,700 deaths per day for the past week, 16% more than a week ago.
In January alone, nearly 20,000 people in the country died of Covid, setting the pace for a month likely to rival December for the pandemic’s deadliest month ever.
Top health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warns that the outbreak is likely to get worse before it gets better.
“We think it will get worse as we enter January,” Fauci said in an interview with NPR on Thursday. He said Americans can still tone down that gear if they strictly adhere to public health measures such as wearing a mask and social distancing.
As of Thursday, cases were still increasing rapidly, a sign that more deaths will follow as people are diagnosed, become ill and enter hospitals, many of which are overwhelmed by the increase in Covid patients. The US reported more than 274,700 new cases on Thursday, taking the seven-day average to a new record high of 228,400, according to Hopkins data.
New cases are increasing every day almost everywhere. The average number of daily new cases is increasing by at least 5% in 44 states and the District of Columbia. The number of new deaths is rising especially rapidly in Southern California, where health workers ration supplemental oxygen and ask ambulances to wait hours before dropping off patients.
Cases and hospitalizations are also increasing rapidly in Arizona, according to Hopkins data, a sign that the daily new deaths could catch up quickly. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday that it was setting up an infusion center to help administer Covid antibody treatments, which have shown promise in preventing hospitalization if used early in the infection.
As the outbreak gets worse, many Americans across the country are waiting for one of the approved vaccines to be rolled out now. The initial rollout was slow, with the US failing to vaccinate 20 million Americans by December, as federal officials had intended.
Federal officials, including Dr. Fauci and Dr. However, Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, have said the pace is likely to pick up this month. The rollout has already shown some signs of slowly gaining speed.
The US has delivered more than 600,000 shots in 24 hours, the CDC reported Thursday. That’s the highest number so far in a one-day period, according to data from the CDC. According to data from the CDC, more than 21.4 million doses have been distributed, but only 5.9 million have been administered.
Despite criticism of a slow initial rollout, HHS officials are now urging states to move beyond the first level of prioritization. According to CDC guidelines, health professionals and residents of long-term care facilities must first receive the vaccine. But HHS Secretary Alex Azar said earlier this week that states should open up to more old and vulnerable Americans if it accelerated the pace of the rollout.
Also adding to the pressure to vaccinate quickly is the arrival of a new variant of the virus. The new variant, known as B.1.1.7, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom, has now been found in at least seven states. While people don’t seem to get it, CDC officials say they think it spreads more easily. That could make the outbreak even worse and overwhelm hospitals quickly, CDC officials said last week.