US death toll from coronavirus topped 300,000 on Monday
NEW YORK, Dec 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States lost more than 17,000 people to COVID-19 last week, the largest number since the beginning of the global pandemic, with North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa reporting the most deaths per capita in the past seven days.
Even as the first Americans were given the newly approved Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Monday, health officials warned that infections will continue to rise in the coming weeks as families gather for the holiday season.
Deaths increased 12 per cent in the week ended Dec 13 to a total of about 300,000 since the start of the outbreak.
More than half of US states have enacted new lockdown restrictions as many hospital intensive care units are nearly full. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has projected that COVID-19 deaths will exceed 500,000 by April 1.
The number of new COVID-19 cases rose 15 per cent to almost 1.6 million last week, including a backlog of almost 65,000 cases reported by Texas. Even excluding the backlog, the number of new infections last week hit a record high.
Rhode Island, Tennessee and Ohio had the highest new cases per capita in the country last week.
Across the United States, 12 per cent of tests came back positive for the virus, up from 10.5 per cent the prior week, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak. Out of 50 states, 32 had a positive test rate of 10 per cent or higher. The highest rates were in Iowa and Alabama at 50 per cent.
The World Health Organization considers positive test rates above 5 per cent concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered. — NNN-AGENCIES
