Deaths from coronavirus in the United States surpassed 450,000 on Thursday, and daily deaths remain stubbornly high at more than 3,000 a day, despite declining infections and the arrival of several vaccines.
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Infectious disease experts hope that deaths will begin to fall soon after new cases reach their peak earlier this year. New deaths from COVID-19 could decrease as early as next week, said the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But there is also a risk that improving trends in infections and hospitalizations may be offset by people relaxing and gathering – including this Sunday, to watch football, she added.
“I am concerned about Sunday’s Super Bowl, quite honestly,” Rochelle Walensky said on Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press.
Walensky said one of the reasons why cases and hospitalizations are not increasing as dramatically as they were weeks ago is because the effect of festive events has lessened.
The effect on deaths is delayed. The daily number of victims reaches 50,000 new deaths in just the past two weeks.
“We are still in a very bad situation,” she said.
The nation reported 3,912 COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, below the pandemic peak of 4,466 deaths on January 12.
The biggest contributor to the number of deaths in the US last month was California, which has averaged more than 500 deaths per day in recent weeks.
Dora Padilla was among the thousands of Californians who died last month.
The 86-year-old daughter of Mexican immigrants served for two decades as a school curator in the Alhambra Unified School District in Southern California, after helping out as a volunteer mother and nurturer for her own children. She was one of the few Latinos to hold an elective position at the time.
She tested positive in December at the facility where she lived, then developed a fever and saw her oxygen level drop. The facility would call an ambulance, but decided to treat it there amid an outbreak of infections that filled local hospitals with patients with viruses, said daughter Lisa Jones.
“They were almost ready to call an ambulance, but they realized there was nowhere to go. It will end up in a corridor somewhere, ”said Jones.
Padilla was stable for days and seemed to be getting better, but he suddenly fell ill again before he died.
“I’m still a little numb,” said the daughter.
The California experience reflected many of the inequalities that have been exposed since the pandemic began almost a year ago, with people of color being hit particularly hard.
For example, Latinos account for 46% of the total deaths in California, despite being 39% of the state’s population. The situation has worsened in recent months. In November, the daily death toll for Latinos was 3.5 per 100,000 residents, but that rate soared to 40 deaths per 100,000 last week.
Alabama is another hot spot. The continuous average of deaths over seven days has increased in the past two weeks, from 74 to 147 deaths per day. Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee also recorded peak deaths.
The most affected demographic groups remain the oldest and most fragile, said Dr. Thomas Holland of Duke University.
When the coronavirus first spread across the country, it was concentrated in nursing homes, prisons and other places of home care. Later, it spread more widely.
“But deaths are still concentrated between older patients and patients” with other health problems, said Holland. “Even with the pandemic spreading more widely in the population, the demographics of those who die of COVID have not really changed.”
In Florida, for example, 83% of deaths attributed to the virus occurred in people aged 65 and over.
Still, that was not enough to inspire some people to wear masks. A recent viral video from Oakes Farms Seed to Table, a local grocery store in Naples, Florida, showed customers and employees without a mask, talking and laughing, without any social distance.
Alfie Oakes, the store owner, told NBC’s “Today” program that he knows the masks don’t work and that he doesn’t believe the coronavirus has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
“This is total bullshit,” said Oakes, adding: “Why don’t we close the world because of heart attacks? Why don’t we close cities because of heart attacks? “
He did not return an AP call on Thursday.
Public health experts are watching Florida closely this week because the Super Bowl will be held in Tampa. City leaders and the NFL are trying to ensure social distance by limiting the audience to one third of the stadium’s capacity – 22,000 people. Still, there will be parties, events in bars and clubs and other activities that bring people together.
Although most infected people recover, others face a much longer way. It may take a week or two to get sick enough to end up in the hospital. Then, those who are seriously ill may end up in an ICU for many weeks, and some will die.
“Patients who do not do well are often subjected to these long and stormy courses, and patients who die, usually within weeks of hospitalization,” said Holland.
COVID treatments have evolved over time, but there has been no “game-changing miracle treatment” alongside vaccine development, said Holland.
“We had things on the bank that are useful,” said Holland.
Among them, the use of steroids for patients who need oxygen, different ventilation strategies and prevention and control of blood clots. There is also the use of monoclonal antibodies for outpatients at the onset of the disease who do not need oxygen, but who may be at higher risk of complications.
In addition, changes in testing helped.
“Obviously, if people know they are infected, they are more likely to do what they need, like staying at home and being quarantined or isolating themselves,” he said.
Looking ahead, the big concern is how the virus is changing, moving on to new strains that are potentially more infectious and better able to escape antibody products or make vaccines less effective.
“We always participate in a race,” said Holland. “But it is much more obvious now that we are in a race to vaccinate people fast enough to slow transmission, so that the virus has less opportunity to mutate, change and create these strain problems for us.
Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in New York and Tamara Lush in St. Petersburg, Florida contributed to this report.