“Deaths are up 36% from two weeks ago and show no signs of plateauing … “
MARKET WATCH – The average number of daily deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. over the past week has climbed above 2,600, according to a New York Times tracker.
The daily death count is now higher than the peak surge in the fall when the delta variant was the dominant variant and close to the peak last winter, before vaccines were available.
Deaths are up 36% from two weeks ago and show no signs of plateauing, the tracker shows.
If current death rates persists, the U.S. may see 900,000 fatalities from COVID by mid-February.
Cases, with the highly infectious omicron variant still dominant, are coming down from their January peak and averaging 424,077 a day, down 44% from two weeks ago.
“The biggest problem is the failure to vaccinate as many people as other wealthy countries and to administer as many booster shots.”
Hospitalizations are down 14% from two weeks ago at 136,753 a day on average.
The rising death toll has disappointed many who had hoped that omicron, which spreads fast but is considered less lethal than other variants, would gradually bring the pandemic to an endemic stage, where it is still present but no longer creating surges of cases and burdening healthcare systems, allowing Americans to get back to something like normality.
The U.S. death rate is higher than in any other wealthy country, according to a Times report, and has exposed weaknesses in the country’s response to the crisis.
Since the first omicron case was detected in the U.S. on Dec. 1, the number of people who have died of COVID is at least 63% higher than those of a number of other big, wealthy countries, according to a Times analysis of mortality rates.
The death rate analysis comes at a time when political leaders are clamoring for the government to treat COVID as endemic …
