Daily deaths from COVID-19 in the United States have surpassed 2,100 for the first since May as millions of Americans continue to ignore CDC travel guidance and dire warnings from health experts that Thanksgiving could be the ‘mother of all superspreader events’.
The daily death toll across the country spiked to 2,146 yesterday, which is the highest number of deaths per day since May 8 during the initial peak of the virus.
Nine states, including North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, Oregon, Maine and Alaska, reported record numbers of deaths yesterday.
Health officials have been warning for weeks that deaths, which are a lagging indicator, would increase after the number of cases and hospitalizations started surging in late September.
There were 172,935 new cases recorded yesterday alone and the number of infections has consistently been well above 100,000 every day for the last three weeks.
There is currently a record 88,000 patients being treated in hospitals across the country.
The US has repeatedly set daily records for the number of hospitalizations for the past month and 30 of the 50 states have reported a record number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in November alone.
Despite the devastating figures and the fact that hospitals are already overwhelmed in parts of the country, the death toll is only expected to surge with millions defying official warnings and traveling for Thanksgiving.
Dr Anthony Fauci warned that the US is already in the middle of a spike and that the true impact of Thanksgiving travel and gatherings won’t be seen for another three weeks when infections and hospitalizations could surge even higher.
Former White House medical team adviser Dr Jonathan Reiner warned that Thanksgiving would be a superspreader event.
Nearly a million people have traveled by plane every day since the holiday travel season began last Friday – just one day after the CDC issued strong guidance urging people to avoid travel.
By next Sunday, it is estimated that 6.3 million would have flown in the days before and after Thanksgiving, according to forecasts from the AAA and based on current figures.
AAA, which forecasts Thanksgiving travel every year, says 48 million Americans will travel by car and 350,000 by train between today and Sunday – just a 10 percent overall decline from last year.
‘It’s potentially the mother of all superspreader events,’ Reiner told CNN.
He noted that the Midwest started seeing spikes in cases weeks after the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota during the summer.
Tens of thousands of people traveled from across the country to attend the event.
‘Now imagine that on a massive scale – people leaving from every airport in the United States, and carrying virus with them,’ Reiner said.
It comes as the CDC revealed yesterday that it was considering relaxing a travel complication by shortening its recommended 14-day quarantine after potential exposure to the virus for individuals who test negative during their isolation.
New York City officials have warned that there will be pre and post Thanksgiving checkpoints at bridges, crossings and bus stations to question travelers from out of state and enforce the state’s mandatory quarantine.
Anyone flying into Los Angeles will be given a form acknowledging the recommendation to quarantine for 14 days.
Authorities in Maryland and Pennsylvania will be deploying additional law enforcement to make sure people are social distancing and complying with COVID-19 orders.
The warnings from public health officials and the disregard across the country for the CDC’s travel guidance comes as the death toll surpassed 260,000 and infections nationwide topped 12.6 million.
The US currently leads the world with the highest number of deaths and cases and Dr Tatiana Prowell of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said all of the Thanksgiving travel will ensure that ‘no one will catch us either’.
‘The US ‘each person for himself’ mindset is killing hundreds of thousands of us. Devastating to watch,’ Prowell said.
Fauci issued a final plea before the holidays urging people to keep indoor gatherings as small as possible and to increase mask wearing and social distancing.
He noted that there is already a spike happening and the US doesn’t want another Thanksgiving driven surge, which won’t be seen fully for at least another three weeks.
‘The final message is to do what we’ve been saying for some time… keep the indoor gatherings as small as you possibly can,’ he told ABC’s Good Morning America. ‘By making that sacrifice you’re going to prevent people from getting infected.
‘The sacrifice now could save lives and illness and make the future much brighter as we get through this…we’re going to get through this. Vaccines are right on the horizon. If we can just hang in there a bit longer and continue to do the simple mitigation – masks, distancing, avoiding crowds. That’s my final plea before the holiday.’
Fauci warned yesterday that the US could surpass a ‘stunning’ 300,000 deaths by the end of the year if the current trajectory continues.
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has also forecast 334,000 deaths by the end of the year if current behaviors remain in place.
The IHME model is forecasting that there will be 2,500 daily deaths by December 31 but, if people wear masks, it will remain around 1,500 per day.
Fauci is among the health officials and politicians that have pleaded with Americans to stay home and abide by the current constraints placed on social and economic life.
With caseloads soaring, more than half the nation’s governors imposed or reimposed statewide measures this month. But despite more stringent face-mask requirements, curfews and limits on bars and restaurants, the metrics of the virus have only worsened.
‘We are on fire with COVID,’ Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on CNN, defending unpopular restrictions he ordered last week that included new limits on retail activity and school closures.
‘We’re just trying to do the right thing.’
While COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are spiking nationally, the Midwest – encompassing a dozen states between Ohio and the Dakotas – has been especially brutalized.
Midwest states continue to be among the hardest hit in the country based on cases and deaths per 100,000 people.
North Dakota is still the worst affected with 158 cases per 100,000 people in the last week. Wyoming follows with 154 cases, New Mexico with 127 cases, South Dakota with 122 and Minnesota with 115 cases per capita.
The worst affected states for deaths per capita are South Dakota with 2.8 deaths per 100,000 residents in the last seven days.
North Dakota follows with 2.1 deaths and Wyoming with 1.4 fatalities.