US Covid cases soar past 15 million as hospital forced to treat patients in underground parking lot
SKYROCKETING Covid-19 cases in the USA topped 15 million this week as one hospital was forced to treat patients in an underground parking lot as America suffered its deadliest week since April.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force reported on Tuesday that 49 states plus Washington DC were in the red zone for infections, while 44 others and DC experienced surging death rates as the contagion spread.
As cases surpassed the 15 million mark on Tuesday, more than 284,000 Americans have now died of the virus – 15,658 in the last week – with fatalities averaging 2,200 per day.
In April, the highest seven-day rolling average for deaths was just over 2,000 at the height of the pandemic in the USA.
As well as rising infections and deaths, on Tuesday, it emerged that 37 states in the red zone for hospital admissions.
Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada resorted to converting two floors of its parking garage into an alternative care site in early November to deal with the onslaught of patients.
“Our frontline caregivers are seeing things that they never would have imagined,” Renown Health’s president and CEO, Tony Slonim, told CBS.
His father passed away on November 12 – the same day the hospital was forced to treat a influx of infected people in the off-site parking garage to cope with the surging numbers.
“This condition took my father’s life,” Slonim added. “We couldn’t be there for him, but I know as a former ICU doctor that they were there comforting him.”
The dire news there comes as 15,658 Americans lost their coronavirus battle in the past week as the number of cases pass 200,000 every day in the last seven days.
There were one million cases reported in the first week of December alone as a Christmas surge looms following the Thanksgiving festivities last month.
The fatalities in April didnt rise at the same rates when infections started to uptick across the Sun Belt over the summer.
Deaths are a lagging indicator, which means they can rise weeks after cases are diagnosed.
They remained below an average of 1,000 per day until last month when many, mostly Midwest, hospitals reached capacity.
Every state except Utah and Montana have reported an increase in deaths in the past seven days versus the previous seven days, a Reuters tally of state and county reports revealed.
South Carolina and Vermont's death tolls spiked, while the Dakotas recorded the most deaths , with an average of 2.7 deaths s per 100,000 in South Dakota and an 1.8 deaths per s per 100,000 in North Dakota.
On Monday, Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN "the middle of January could be a really dark time" as a result of the Thanksgiving surge compounded by Christmas celebrations over the holiday period.
"I think it could be even more of a challenge than what we saw with Thanksgiving," he said. "This may be even more compounded because it's a longer holiday.
"What we likely will see is either a blip upon a blip, or what I referred to last week as a surge upon a surge. How large it's going to be is really going to vary across the country.
"We're probably just on the beginning of seeing what occurred at Thanksgiving.
"I hope that people realize that and understand that as difficult as this is, nobody wants to modify – if not essentially shut down – their holiday season, but we are in a very critical time in this country right now."
"We've got to not walk away from the facts and the data," he added, referring to the increased restrictions in some states. "This is tough going for all of us."
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All across the country, 10.5 percent of tests came back positive, an uptick of 9.8 percent from the week before, The Covid Tracking Project data revealed.
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Around 34 had a positive test rate of 10 percent or higher in all 50 states with the highest rates found in Iowa and Idaho at 52 percent while South Dakota was at 50 percent.
The World Health Organization WHO) said anything above five percent is worrisome and suggests there are more cases that have yet to be discovered or reported.