SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California surpassed New York on Tuesday as the U.S. state with the most coronavirus deaths, a cruel reminder of the toll of the pandemic, even though the vaccine exploded and a sharp drop in new cases restore hope for life, normally.
More than 45,000 people died at the end of Tuesday in COVID-19 in California, the most populous of the 50 states and one of the worst hit in recent months. New York, which was hit hard last spring in the early stages of pandemic, lost 44,693 lives, according to a Reuters report. here
“It is a sad reminder that COVID-19 is a deadly virus, and we mourn with every Californian who suffered the tragic loss of a loved one during this pandemic,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state health secretary, said about the milestone in an email to Reuters.
California, home to about 40 million people, became a major epicenter of the pandemic during the year-end infections and hospitalizations that spread across much of the country.
In terms of per capita deaths, California, with 113 deaths per 100,000 people, ranks 32nd in the country in COVID-19 deaths. By comparison, New York, with 230 deaths per 100,000, is second only to New Jersey, which has about 248 deaths per coronavirus per 100,000 population.
Nationwide, the daily count of new cases and hospitalizations of COVID-19 has been steadily declining over the past few weeks, while deaths, a backlog indicator, have plummeted.
The United States as a whole reported 27.25 million infections and 468,559 deaths at the end of Tuesday. Just over 79,000 U.S. patients were hospitalized Tuesday with COVID-19, the lowest daily number since mid-November.
But in California, as in other states, the improvement disguises a rise in disease, hospitalizations and deaths, which is much higher than the previous peak of the pandemic last summer.
Gavin Newsom, Governor Gavin Newsom, said at a news conference that the number of lost lives reported daily in the state has been declining over the past few weeks, but is still “remarkably” high.
“Deaths continue to be devastating,” Newsom said during the opening of a vaccination center at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara County near San Francisco.
Public health experts fear that the gatherings for Super Bowl celebrations on Sunday, as well as the arrival of new, highly contagious variants of the virus, could lead to another increase in cases before most Americans are vaccinated.
In an effort to speed up the vaccination campaign to stem the pandemic, President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that his government plans to increase the number of vaccine doses sent to the countries, starting February 15.
A portion of the expanded offering will be sent to community health centers in an effort to improve access to vaccines for the mostly poor and minority population serving the centers, the White House said Tuesday.
By Tuesday, about 33 million Americans had received at least one dose of vaccine to fight the coronavirus, reports the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“This vaccine is the weapon that will win this war,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a news conference Tuesday. Ten percent of New York State residents received the vaccine, he said.
(This story corrects two numbers reversed in paragraph five to show that New Jersey had 248 deaths per 100,000 and New York 230 per 100,000.)
Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; additional reporting by Anurag Maan and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Edited by Jonathan Oatis, Robert Birsel, Peter Graff