As the US closes 400,000 coronavirus deaths, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control said that by mid-February, officials expect the death toll to be staggering.
“By mid-February, we expect half a million deaths in this country,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
Gloomy news comes as Los Angeles struggles with a more contagious variant of the virus. California leads the world in cases of coronavirus with fish 3 million infected inhabitants.
UCLA epidemiologist Dr. Anne Rimoin told CBS News that she “certainly” suspects that there are more active variants in the population. She compared the search for variants to “the glow of a flashlight in the dark,” adding, “You’ll see something if you start looking and we just didn’t look.”
PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP through Getty Images
But at the national level, the chaotic launch of the vaccine continues, leading to more than a few torn nerves in Florida.
“You can’t get a date, you can’t buy a date. So what are we going to do?” said Elizabeth Johnson, a Palm Beach resident.
The Florida Department of Health said more than 40,000 are already waiting for the second dose as the country prepares for the worst.
The darkest weeks have already hit Southern California. The data show a dramatic increase in COVID-19 deaths in LA County, where one person now dies every six minutes.
The coroner has a remaining bodies, so much so that LA County has just eased air quality rules to allow more incineration.
And yet, no matter how bad things may seem, there is at least one uplifting update.
CBS News met with Dennis Zayas and his wife Jessica just before Christmas, after a COVID-19 diagnosis led to a double lung transplant. He told CBS News that his recovery was a daily struggle and that he had to learn to walk almost again.
Now he not only walks, but trains and, on the weekend, received the first dose of Modern vaccine.
CBS News confirmed Monday that President Trump will lift travel restrictions in Europe and Brazil, where the virus is on the rise, before stepping down. The restrictions will be lifted on January 26 – but President-elect Biden’s team said Monday it would block the changes.