Nearly 119,000 Americans spent Christmas Day in the hospital with COVID-19, while 1,541 more were killed.
But according to the COVID tracking project20 states didn’t update their numbers on Friday, meaning the actual number of deaths nationwide could be much higher.
While the total number of hospital admissions on Friday dropped to 118,948 after hitting a new high of 120,151 the previous day, the seven-day average climbed again to a new high on Christmas Day, reaching 117,029.
On Friday, 124,498 new cases were reported, but the COVID Tracking Project warned that the data had been affected by the holiday closures.
Nationwide, more than 18.7 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus and 330,246 have been killed.
The seven-day average for hospital admissions climbed again to a new high on Christmas Day, reaching 117,029 as nearly 1,119,000 COVID-19 patients spent the holiday in the hospital
A medical staff member changes a patient’s dress in the COVID-19 ICU on Christmas Day at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston as 119,000 patients spend the holiday in the hospital
One of the states that did not provide an update on new cases and deaths on Friday was California, where the outbreak has already pushed the health care system to a breaking point, after reporting 300,000 new cases last week.
Earlier this week, it became the first state to exceed two million cases, as experts remain concerned about a possible further spike caused by Christmas and New Year’s travelers.
The Centers for Disease Control again warned against travel during the holidays as the effects of Thanksgiving on the country’s outbreak remained uncertain.
While travel numbers have remained low compared to other years, health experts remain concerned that the run-up to Christmas still saw the most travelers since the start of the pandemic.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) spokesman Lisa Farbstein said Thursday morning that 1,191,123 individuals were screened at national airport checkpoints on Wednesday.
“It’s the highest number of checkpoints since March 16, when 1,257,823 people were screened,” Farbstein said, adding that anyone traveling this holiday season “should wear a mask.”
Pleas for residents to stay home have become more urgent in California, where doctors have said the state is currently experiencing a “ viral tsunami. ”
The number of cases in the state is up 68 percent in the past two weeks, and the ICU capacity remains at zero percent, as overcrowded hospitals even have to use their lobby space to treat patients.
“In most hospitals, about half of all beds are filled with COVID patients and half of all IC beds are filled with COVID patients, and two-thirds of these patients are suffocating from the inflammation caused in their lungs. the virus, ”said Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
‘They are suffocating so much that they can no longer breathe on their own, and they have to have someone stick a tube down their throat to supply their organs with oxygen. Many of these people will not be alive in 2021, ” she said Thursday.
Nearly 119,000 Americans spent Christmas Day in the hospital with COVID-19, while 1,541 more were killed. The photo shows a patient in a COVID-19 ICU unit in Houston, Texas
In the photo, an employee responds after her patient first eats food herself after the intubation tubes are removed while on the COVID-19 ICU unit at the Memorial Medical Center
LA County hospitals redirected ambulances and left patients unattended for hours.
County health officials sent a memo to doctors urging them not to send patients to the emergency room unless absolutely necessary.
There is also a drastic shortage of nurses and other medical personnel, and California leaders are contacting Australia and Taiwan to meet the need for 3,000 temporary health workers.
Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh had an allergic reaction after receiving the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at Boston Medical Center on Christmas Eve
Still, officials remained hopeful that the vaccine rollout will continue to improve the situation, despite a Boston doctor becoming the first person on Friday to receive a serious reaction publicly related to Moderna’s vaccine, which occurred in the first week of May. a nationwide distribution.
Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh, a geriatric oncology fellow at Boston Medical Center, said he had a severe reaction almost immediately after the vaccination, feeling dizzy and with a beating heart, the NYT reported.
Sadrzadeh knew he was allergic to shellfish.
David Kibbe, a Boston Medical Center spokesperson, said in a statement Friday that Dr. Sadrzadeh “felt that he was developing an allergic reaction and that he was allowed to administer his own personal epi-pen”.
“He was taken to the emergency room, evaluated, treated, observed and discharged. He’s fine today, ‘Kibbe added.
A US Food and Drug Administration official said last week that the FDA is investigating about five allergic reactions that occurred after people received Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine in the US.
Projections from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a leading COVID-19 model, have shown the lethal effect that any delay in vaccine spread to the American public could have.
The latest projections show that by April 1, 731,000 Americans could die from COVID-19 if states begin to lift their mandates around masks and social aloofness.
Still, more than 33,000 lives could be saved if the vaccine is distributed as planned, and 45,000 Americans if the vaccine is rolled out faster.
The model currently predicts there will be a death toll of 567,195 by April 1, while mandates and vaccines continue as planned.