3,100 US COVID Deaths in a Day – 300,000 Total

The United States has now surpassed 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus – a threshold that was broken today.

The explosion of the COVID pandemic is accelerating. Last Thursday alone there was a record 220,000 new positive cases, and at least 3,124 people died–more than died on 9/11, more than died from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and far more than died on Pearl Harbor. Never forget that there is a human face behind every one of these numbers. In one day, more than 3,000 families have lost a loved one.

AP PHOTO/JAE C. HONG
Claudia Campos swabs the mouth of her daughter, Katie Ramirez, at a testing site in Los Angeles on Dec. 9, 2020. 

Most of those victims died without being able to have family around in the several days prior to their deaths.

Deaths in Utah are skyrocketing. Last week on a signal day Utah had 23 deaths, many of them were patients under age 65. ICU bed capacity in Utah’s hospital system has virtually disappeared.

The most depressing aspect is that much of it was preventable if we had had appropriate public policy from the White House. The US is the only country in the world where the winter surge is still on an upward trend. And the White House is still holding indoor holiday parties, with hundreds attending, and few masks. This disregard for human life is unconscionable.

A new study from the World Health Organization in the world’s premier medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, has shown that the anti-viral drugs remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and interferon beta-1a are not effective in preventing COVID deaths.

We urge all of you to take the precautions we know are needed to prevent spread of the virus.