COVID-19 Cases: US Crosses 20m Mark On New Year’s Day
The United States (US) marked the first day of 2021 by surpassing the dismal landmark of 20 million coronavirus cases, as hospitals, undertakers, vaccine administrators and ordinary families struggled across the nation.
Medical reports showed that over 10,000 Americans died in the last three days of 2020 as the year finished with the pandemic, which has never been under control in the US since its outbreak last January, breaking all the wrong world records.
By available data, the US has almost twice as many confirmed Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases as the next worst-hit country, India, with almost 350,000 lives already lost to the deadly virus as at Friday, January 1, 2021.
The south Asian nation has 10.2 million cases among a population of 1.3 billion, whereas the US on Friday reached 20 million infections with a population of 328 million.
According to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University, almost 350,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19, and the figure is by far the world’s highest death toll. The country with the second most fatalities is Brazil, where 195,000 people have died from the virus.
In California, whose second wave of infections this autumn and winter has proved to be a sickness tsunami, morgues in some places are overflowing and undertakers are turning away grieving families, the Los Angeles Times reported.
More than 150 people are dying every day in Los Angeles County alone as deaths have soared in December. Also, hospitalizations are surging in Texas and public health authorities in Harris County, which includes the Houston metropolis, spent the week begging Texans to cancel New Years Eve celebrations and “cancel all gatherings”. – With The Guardian reports
