According to Johns Hopkins University data, California is poised to surpass New York as the state with the highest COVID-19 death toll in the U.S., with more than 45,000 deaths in each.
As of Wednesday morning, the toll in California stood at 45,009, just behind the 45,140 deaths in New York. The two states have been hit hardest in terms of the large number of deaths, and California has had more COVID-19 cases than any other, with 3.4 million infections since the pandemic began.
The pandemic took reverse lanes in New York and California. While incidents and deaths in New York increased to more than 14,000 cases and 1,200 in a single day at their respective peaks, California was one of the first states to close, and has a relatively soft source for COVID. 19 had.
Now New York’s deaths are well below 200 a day, while a surge in infections has overwhelmed California’s hospitals after the holidays, keeping the fatal deaths above 500 almost every day of last month.
Although California is now approaching a bad milestone, there are encouraging signs that the pandemic could reach a plateau in the US – at least for now.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, the U.S. recorded 95,360 new cases and 3,131 deaths on Tuesday.
The seven-day moving average number of new cases per day has dropped to its lowest level since November 7th. At 105,786, the average number of daily infections is now 57 percent lower than a month ago, on January 9th.
And the downward trend in hospitalizations continues in the US. A total of 79,179 Americans received in-and-out care for COVID-19 – 30,000 less than was admitted to the hospital on January 26.
While U.S. deaths again surpassed 3,000 in a 24-hour period Tuesday, this trend in deaths is finally moving in the right direction as well. The seven-day average of daily deaths is now 2,900 – a 12 percent drop from the average two weeks ago.
Despite the staggering number of deaths, the tide also appears to be turning for California, with 10,584 new cases recorded Tuesday, compared to about 40,000 per day recorded in January per day.
California’s mortality rate is also starting to decline after months of relentless growth, with weekly deaths about 20 percent lower than their January peak.
According to data from the COVID detection project, the cases are now down in 43 states, compared to the new infection rates two weeks ago. In the remaining four states, daily affairs hold up. The only place where daily infections increase is the area of Guam.
California’s death toll hit less than 140 people on Wednesday morning with 45,009 deaths in New York, as they were poised to surpass 451.45 in New York.
Over the past week, the seven-day average for new cases decreased by 10 percent or more in 43 states and remained stable in eight
The average of seven days for deaths has dropped by 10 percent or more in 24 states over the past week. The rate remained stable in 18 states and rose by 10 percent or more in eight states
However, the death toll continues to rise in nine states: Delaware, Kansas, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Vermont and Washington, DC.
The average deaths in California decreased by 17 percent compared to last week, while the deaths in New York remain about the same, with only a decrease of four percent compared to last week.
California Health Secretary Mark Ghaly said the 45,000 milestone is a heartbreaking reminder that Covid-19 is a deadly virus.
“We mourn with every Californian who suffered the tragic loss of a loved one during this pandemic,” Ghaly said.
Despite surpassing New York’s death toll, California is in a better position than New York in terms of per capita deaths.
California is 32nd in the country with 113 deaths per 100,000 people, while New York ranks second with 230 – according to Statista statistics, only 248 behind New Jersey.
Recently in October, California’s absolute death toll was less than half that of New York, but America’s most populous state showed a surge of infections and hospital cases in a large part of the country as a major hub during the year-end.
New York’s new cases, hospitalizations and deaths are declining, and there are now less than 150 deaths a day
The death toll in California continued to rise after the Thanksgiving holiday, although hospitalizations and cases eventually declined to a peak in January, where more than 50,000 people were hospitalized on a given day.
Deaths rose to unprecedented levels in December, climbing into the hundreds daily in a surge that recorded nearly 15,000 deaths in January alone.
But with a new shutdown, growth could come to a halt, with infections falling more than 70 percent since they reached the end of December.
Tuesday’s figures showed only 8,251 new infections the previous day, the first time the daily number has been below 10,000 since November 17.
The slowdown in new infections is now beginning to show its effects on hospitalizations and deaths, with the daily average deaths from 565 at the end of January to 450 on Tuesday.
Now, however, there is a new threat to California and the US. Last month, experts estimated that about a quarter of COVID-19 cases in the state were due to a homemade variant of the virus.
And the state has the second largest number of ‘super-covid’ cases in the UK with at least 156 confirmed B117 infections. It only follows Florida, where there are at least 343 cases.
The variant that emerged in the UK last year and became dominant is now about one to four percent of all cases in the wider U.S., Drs. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), said during a press briefing by the White House on Wednesday. .
This graph shows the declining infection rates in California (purple), New York (green) and New York (blue), with the latter two being counted separately by the CDC.
The declining infection rates in California have eased the pressure on hospitals (pictured, a virus patient is being intubated at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo)
Scientists in California suspect that variants – including the homemade form and the ‘super-covid’ of the UK, may have fueled the increase in the case of last month and in turn the increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
Although it has been declining, the death toll remains “remarkably” high, Governor Gavin Newsom said during a Tuesday news conference.
“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.
The number of hospitalized patients has also declined, with 11,904 people in the hospital since Tuesday’s update, compared to a peak of more than 22,000 at one stage.
The slowdown in infection rates has also eased the pressure on ICUs, where capacity is increasing again for the first time in months.
Newsom, a Democrat, eased some of the state’s closure measures in January, which again allowed restaurants to eat out.
New York also wants to ease restrictions after cases similarly fell from a peak in January, reflecting a gradual improvement in virus numbers across the country.
In New York, where nearly 30,000 died during the initial early outbreak in 2020, deaths this winter have yet to return to last year’s disastrous figures.
While the state’s death rate since May is still at its highest level, average daily deaths have risen to 168 from Tuesday compared to 198 on January 20th.
California Gov. Newsom has eased some restrictions, but says the death toll is still “remarkably” high.
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.
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 process, President Biden announced on Tuesday that his government intends to increase the number of vaccine doses sent to the states.
A portion of the offer is being sent to community health centers in an effort to improve access to vaccines for mostly poor and minority populations, the White House said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received by Tuesday about 33 million Americans at least one dose of vaccine to fight the coronavirus.
“This vaccine is the weapon that will win this war,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference on Tuesday.
Ten percent of New York State residents received the vaccine, he said.