California surpasses New York as the US state with the most COVID-19 deaths

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California surpassed New York, the state with the most coronavirus deaths, on Tuesday, a bleak memory of the number of pandemics, even though the launch of the vaccine and a sharp drop in new cases finally. normal.

More than 45,000 people died late Tuesday from COVID-19 in California, the most populous of the 50 states and one of the hardest hit in recent months. New York, severely affected in the early stages of the pandemic last spring, reported 44,693 lives, according to a Reuters report. Here

“This is a reminder to your heart 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, Secretary of Health. state. landmark in an email to Reuters.

California, home to about 40 million people, emerged as the main US epicenter of the pandemic during a year-end wave of infections and hospitalizations that swept much of the country, pushing many health care systems to their limits.

When considered in terms of per capita deaths, California, with 113 deaths per 100,000 people, ranks 32nd in the country in terms of COVID-19 mortality. By comparison, New York, with 230 deaths per 100,000, ranks second only to New Jersey, which recorded approximately 248 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents.

At the national level, the daily numbers of new cases and hospitalizations from COVID-19 have steadily decreased in recent weeks, while deaths, an indicator of delay, have flattened.

The United States as a whole reported 27.25 million infections and 468,559 deaths as of late Tuesday. Just over 79,000 patients in the United States were hospitalized on Tuesday with COVID-19, the lowest daily number since mid-November.

But in California, as in other states, the improvement hides a march of diseases, hospitalizations and deaths, which remain much higher than they were at the previous peak of the pandemic last summer.

The number of lives reported daily in the state has dropped in recent weeks, but remains “remarkably” high, averaging 500 deaths a day in the past 14 days, Gov. Gavin Newsom told a news conference.

“Deaths continue to be devastating,” Newsom said, speaking at the opening of a vaccination site at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara County, near San Francisco.

Public health experts fear that Sunday’s meetings for the Super Bowl holidays, as well as the arrival of new highly contagious variants of the virus, could lead to a further increase in cases before most Americans are vaccinated.

In an effort to speed up the immunization campaign based on stopping the pandemic, President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that his administration intends to increase the number of vaccine doses shipped to states starting February 15th.

Part of the extended offer will be sent to community health centers, in an effort to improve access to the vaccine for the mostly poor and minority populations that these centers serve, the White House said Tuesday.

By Tuesday, about 33 million Americans had received at least one dose of vaccine to fight the coronavirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.

“This vaccine is the weapon that will win this war,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a news briefing Tuesday. Ten percent of New Yorkers received the vaccine, he said.

(This story corrects two figures that were reversed in paragraph five to show that New Jersey had 248 deaths per 100,000 and New York had 230 per 100,000.)