- As of Friday, 16 states in the U.S. reported the highest total number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
- Since last fall, cases of COVID-19 have increased in the US, with numbers worsening in the states after the holiday season.
- At the end of last year, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for two COVID-19 vaccines, but a slow implementation means that it will take many months for everyone who wants a vaccine to be immunized.
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More than a dozen U.S. states this week reported a record number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 patients, according to data from the COVID-19 Screening Project published Friday.
Most of the 16 states that saw the record totals were in the southern US and include Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Record hospitalizations were also seen this week in Arizona, California, Delaware and Maine.
Including the 16 states that reported hospitalization records this week, more than three dozen states and territories have reported COVID-19 hospitalizations since the beginning of November, according to the data.
The COVID-19 Tracking Project was created last year by The Atlantic and regularly monitors and publishes data related to the pandemic.
—The COVID Tracking Project (@ COVID19Tracking) January 9, 2021
A record number – 310,000 – new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Friday, according to the data, with the majority of new infections reported in New Jersey – 20,000 new cases – and in California – 50,000 new cases.
As The Los Angeles Times reported, staff at some California hospitals are being forced to take drastic measures, including creating panels to determine who receives life-saving care to prevent their health care system from collapsing under pressure from the increase in COVID- 19 cases.
Hospitalizations in Arizona and California increased by “alarming rate“said the project, noting that the number of hospitalizations in these states” has far surpassed the peak of summer “.
According to data from the COVID-19 Tracking Project, more than 23,000 people in the U.S. have died since the beginning of the new year just over a week ago, with more than 3,700 new deaths reported on Friday. In total, more than 368,000 people have died in the country from the disease caused by the new coronavirus since the pandemic began early last year, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which also tracks and publishes data from COVID-19.
COVID-19 cases started to increase in the fall of 2020, and the numbers continued to worsen in the US states after the holiday season, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Public health officials and state leaders asked people to stay home during the holidays, but millions of people traveled anyway in November and December.
At the end of last year, the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization for two different COVID-19 vaccines, although implementation in the United States is left to state governments and is slow. Experts say it will take many months before all Americans who want a vaccine can be immunized, prolonging the pandemic.