California is set to surpass New York as the US state with the most coronavirus deaths, a grim reminder of the pandemic’s toll even as the vaccine rollout and a dramatic drop in new cases offer hope that life will eventually return to normal.
Fatalities from Covid-19 reached 44,494 on Tuesday in California, the most populous US state. In New York, which was particularly hard hit in the pandemic’s early days, the total death toll stood at 44,969 on Tuesday.
California began the pandemic as a leader in containing the virus, but emerged this winter as the among the nation’s hardest-hit states. It took the Golden state six months to record its first 10,000 deaths, but in barely a month, from December to January, the total soared from 20,000 to 30,000. The state is now averaging 450 deaths a day.
Black and Latino Californians vaccinated at far lower rates than others
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Los Angeles county, the most populous county in the country, has become the hardest hit in the state, with public health officials estimating that one in three Los Angeles residents have been infected with the virus at some point. Almost 41% of California’s Covid-19 fatalities have come from Los Angeles county, which makes up a quarter of the state’s population.
Echoing nationwide trends, the pandemic has struck California’s population unequally, and has hit Latino residents disproportionately hard. Latinos make up 38.9% of the state’s population but account for 46% of deaths, according to figures from California’s department of public health. The average number of Latino residents dying from coronavirus each day in Los Angeles county has increased by more than 1,000% since November.
Nationwide, new cases, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 continue to drop rapidly. In California as well, numbers have dropped. Hospitalizations are down 34% and intensive care unit admissions are down 26%.
Gavin Newsom
(@GavinNewsom)
#COVID19 UPDATE:
— One month ago, we reported 53k cases. Today: 8,251 cases.
— One month ago, we reported a 14% test positivity rate. Today: 4.8%.
— Hospitalizations: down 34% in last 2 weeks.
— ICU admissions: down 26% in last 2 weeks.
Hopeful signs continue.
February 9, 2021
But in California as well as other states, the improvement masks a continuing march of illness and deaths, which remain higher now than they were at the pandemic’s previous peak last summer.
Public health experts fear that a surge propelled by Super Bowl parties on Sunday, as well as the arrival of new, highly contagious variants of the virus, may lead to another jump in cases before most Americans are vaccinated.
In an effort to speed the rollout of vaccines that are being counted on to stop the pandemic’s spread, Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that his administration planned to increase the number of vaccine doses sent to the states, beginning on 15 February.
Part of the expanded supply will be sent to community health centers in an effort to improve vaccine access for the mostly poor and minority population that the centers serve, the White House said on Tuesday.
By Tuesday, about 33 million Americans had received at least one dose of vaccine to fight the coronavirus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.
“This vaccine is the weapon that will win this war!” New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said at a news briefing on Tuesday. Ten per cent of New York state residents had received the vaccine, he said.
Part of the reason for California’s high death toll is the state’s huge population, nearly 40 million. In terms of per-capita deaths, California, with 113 deaths per 100,000 residents, ranks 32nd in the country. By comparison, New York, with 248 deaths per 100,000, ranks second after New Jersey, which has had about 230 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents.
But some are still wary, especially after Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, lifted the state’s second shelter-in-place order at the end of last month while the funeral industry in Los Angeles county is faced with a horrifying backlog of thousands of bodies. Many small businesses welcomed the reopening and the chance to start earning again, while others questioned the disproportionate impact reopening would have on essential workers of color.
In the next phase of virus containment, Newsom has moved to open a number of mass vaccination sites across the state. Sites are already up and running at Disneyland and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, with new sites announced at PetCo Park in San Diego and Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara just this week.
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