The United States has surpassed 370,000 coronavirus deaths, with more than 24,000 Americans dying from COVID-19 in the first nine days of 2021.
According to Johns Hopkins University, a total of 370,119 people have died since the start of the pandemic in the US, after 1,346 new deaths were reported Saturday afternoon.
So far, a further 115,409 new infections have been recorded across the country, bringing the nationwide total to 21,978,182.
The latest numbers are a disturbing sign of a post-holiday wave As of January 1, 24,260 deaths and as many as 2,003,618 new cases have been reported.
This week alone, 16 states reported their highest COVID-19 hospital admissions and California had its deadliest day.
The state reported a record 695 new fatalities on Saturday, a day after Los Angeles reported its highest daily death toll of 318.
This week, 16 states reported their highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations. In the photo, patients are pushed into the emergency room at the LAC USC hospital
According to the health department, there were more than 52,000 new infections in California as of Saturday afternoon.
Hospitals across the state continue to grapple with an increase in the number of virus patients, and doctors fear the worst post-vacation spike is yet to come.
“It takes two to three weeks for patients to get sick enough to need the hospital after contracting the virus, and Christmas was only two weeks ago, and we’re already full,” said Dr. Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, told CNN.
On Friday, there were again records for the seven-day mean for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the US, with fatalities averaging 2,934.
Of the 310,080 new cases reported Friday, 50,000 were in California and 20,000 in New Jersey, according to the COVID tracking project.
The rise in the number of cases on Friday means that 44 states have reported at least 500 COVID-19 cases per million people.
New Jersey peaked again on Friday, with 2,694 infections per million inhabitants registered.
It is followed by Kansas with 1,889 cases per million people and Arizona with 1,602 infections per million people.
Arizona has also surpassed the summer surge in hospital admissions, with patients increasing at an alarming rate.
On Wednesday, health experts named Arizona as the new global coronavirus hotspot, as the Arizona state outbreak took a new turn.
The state now leads the nation with the highest COVID-19 diagnosis rate.
As of December 31, one in 111 Arizonans has been diagnosed with the virus.
The wave of new cases on Friday came when Dr. Deborah Birx warned that the US could have its own home-grown mutant COVID-19 strain, in the same way that Britain does, because the virus is spreading so quickly.
The United States broke a record Friday for the highest number of new cases of COVID-19 in one day, as California and New Jersey saw a massive one-day rise, in the second photo from the left.
Sixteen states have recorded the highest number of hospital admissions this week
Hospital admissions are on the rise with alarming numbers in Arizona and California in particular
Birx, who announced her retirement before Christmas when Joe Biden takes office, after getting a red face over the holidays for ignoring COVID guidelines, made the analysis at a recent meeting of the White House coronavirus task force.
She presented a series of graphs and charts, officials said, showing a severe spike in cases.
Birx speculated that this could be because a new, more contagious variant of the virus is circulating – in the same way that Britain is shocked by the new B.1.1.7 strain.
Her concerns got through in the weekly report sent to state governors that was leaked Friday.
“This fall / winter rise is nearly twice the rate of the spring and summer rises,” the report said.
This acceleration suggests that there may be an American variant that has evolved here, in addition to the British variant that is already spreading in our communities and may be 50% more transferable.
“Aggressive restriction should be used to match a more aggressive virus.”
Nationally, more than 21.8 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, and there have been 368,679 deaths.