US sets COVID-19 death record for third week, and hospitalizations fall

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FILE PHOTO: Patients are kept in the hallway as the St. Mary Medical Center uses tents outside to handle the overflow at its 200-bed hospital in Apple Valley, California, USA, on January 12, 2021. REUTERS / Mike Blake

(Reuters) – The United States lost more than 23,000 lives to COVID-19 last week, setting a record for the third consecutive week, although the number of new infections and the number of patients in hospitals both fell from the previous seven days .

The country reported more than 1.5 million new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending Jan. 17, 12% lower than the previous week, and only eight out of 50 states showed an increase in new infections, according to ‘ A Reuters analysis of the state. and country reports.

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The average number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals fell by 2% from the previous week to about 128,000, the first drop since October, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the voluntary COVID Tracking Project.

While some health officials have expressed concern about a more contagious variant of the virus that is spreading in the United States, Dr. California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly was comforted by the fact that hospitals in California admitted 2,500 coronavirus patients every 24 hours. 3,500 per day.

Ghaly told reporters last week that it was “the biggest sign for me that things are starting to flatten out and could possibly improve.”

Cumulatively, nearly 400,000 people died from the new coronavirus, or one in every 822 residents of the United States. The country set a one-day record with 4,336 deaths reported on January 12, according to the Reuters analysis of state and country reports.

Alabama last week had the highest death toll per capita at 16 per 100,000 residents, followed by Arizona at 15.5 per 100,000 people.

The United States set a record on January 15 with more than 2.2 million COVID-19 tests performed in one day. Last week, 11% of the tests returned positive for the virus, compared to 13.3% the previous week, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. The highest positive tests were in Iowa at 46%, Idaho at 40% and Pennsylvania at 35%.

Graph by Chris Canipe, written by Lisa Shumaker, edited by Tiffany Wu

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