Tag Archives: Death

Daily U.S. COVID-19 deaths again top 3,000 as officials scurry to distribute vaccine

(Reuters) – Daily U.S. deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 3,000 for the third time in a week as the country expanded its vaccination program and the U.S. Congress progressed toward approving financial relief for the pandemic-stricken country.

The death toll of 3,102 on Tuesday, the third highest total since the pandemic began, increased the cumulative number of U.S. fatalities to 304,187, according to a Reuters tally. The case load of 16.7 million infections represented roughly 5% of the U.S. population.

Inoculations of the newly approved COVID-19 vaccine entered their third day on Wednesday, set aside for doctors, nurses and other frontline medical workers, along with residents and staff of nursing homes.

The vaccine, developed by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE, won emergency-use authorization last Friday. A second vaccine from Moderna Inc could get emergency-use approval this week.

U.S. officials aim to get 2.9 million doses delivered by week’s end, but it will take several months before vaccines can be obtained on demand by the public at large.

Political leaders and medical authorities have launched a two-pronged media blitz avowing the safety of the vaccines while urging Americans to remain diligent about social distancing and mask-wearing until inoculations become widely available.

Experts fear deaths and cases could further soar if people reject their advice to cancel year-end holiday gatherings. A significant portion of the American public has already shown disdain for basic public health guidance, and only 61% of respondents in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were open to getting vaccinated.

The virus has spread so fast that many California hospitals have run out of space in their intensive care units.

The state has ordered scores of refrigerator storage trailers for corpses and distributed 5,000 body bags to San Diego, Los Angeles and Inyo counties, Governor Gavin Newsom said.

The pandemic has also put millions of people out of work as states and localities imposed sweeping stay-at-home orders and closed businesses to control the spread.

Congress has failed to pass new coronavirus aid since April, but congressional leaders on Tuesday reported substantial progress toward a coronavirus deal and a bill to avert a government shutdown.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. crosses 300,000 COVID-19 deaths as vaccine rollout begins

By Anurag Maan

(Reuters) – The number of coronavirus deaths in the United States crossed 300,000 on Monday, according to Reuters tally, as the hardest hit nation rolled out its first vaccine inoculations on Monday.

The staggering death toll comes as the nation begins a historic inoculation campaign using a vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE. Moderna Inc’s vaccine could get approval as soon as this week.

The vaccine comes as COVID-19 cases explode across the nation and hospital intensive care units run out of beds. Daily coronavirus cases and deaths have set records multiple times since Thanksgiving holidays with daily fatalities topping 3,000 for the second time last week on Friday, the same day the vaccine got approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

It took 27 days to go from 250,000 total U.S. COVID-19 deaths to 300,000 – the fastest 50,000-death jump since the pandemic began. Some models project that deaths could reach 500,000 before vaccines become widely available in the spring and summer.

In recent weeks, South Dakota and North Dakota have led the nation in deaths per capita. Overall, New Jersey and New York, early epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, lead the nation in per capita deaths.

The United States recently crossed 16 million confirmed cases – the most in the world.

According to Reuters analysis, the United States is reporting 91 deaths per 100,000 people, seventh worst in the world on a per capita basis and 2.5 times the rate in Canada.

The nation’s hospitals are flooding with COVID-19 patients, threatening to overwhelm healthcare systems and providers. There are over 108,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the highest since the first coronavirus case was detected in the country in January.

(Reporting by Anurag Maan in Bengaluru and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. COVID deaths smash daily record amid pleas to trim back Christmas

By Susan Heavey and Maria Caspani

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The daily U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 3,000 for the first time, prompting pleas for Americans to scale back Christmas plans even with vaccines on the cusp of winning regulatory approval.

COVID-19 deaths reached 3,253 on Wednesday, pushing up the U.S. total since the start of the pandemic to 289,740. A record 106,219 people were hospitalized with the highly infectious respiratory disease.

Healthcare professionals and support staff, exhausted by demands of the pandemic, have been watching patients die alone as millions of Americans refuse to follow medical advice to wear masks and avoid crowds to contain the spread.

Nursing home residents and staff have also felt the burden.

“This is a pandemic that no one has ever experienced in our lifetimes,” Stephen Hanse, president of the New York State Health Facilities Association and the New York State Center for Assisted Living, told Reuters on Thursday.

The one-day death toll exceeded the number of lives lost from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, underscoring the human toll and the call for Americans to redouble efforts.

“No Christmas parties. There is not a safe Christmas party in this country right now,” Dr. Michael Osterholm told CNN on Thursday.

“It won’t end after that but that is the period right now where we could have a surge upon a surge upon a surge,” Osterholm said.

Potentially helping to rein in the outbreak, a vaccine could start reaching healthcare workers, first responders and nursing home residents within days in what Hanse called “light at the end of the tunnel.”

A panel of independent medical experts was due to decide on Thursday whether to recommend to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE for emergency use authorization.

A vote was expected some time after 3:10 p.m. EST (2010 GMT).

FDA consent could come as early as Friday or Saturday, followed by the first U.S. injections on Sunday or Monday, Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program, told Fox News.

A second vaccine developed by Moderna is a week behind.

Biden, who succeeds President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, has set a goal of vaccinating 100 million people within the first 100 days of his administration.

In the meantime, intensive care units at hundreds of hospitals across the country were at or near capacity, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed.

Ten mostly rural counties in California reported having no ICU beds on Wednesday, according to state health figures analyzed by Reuters.

Besides the human cost, the pandemic has forced millions out of work as state and local officials impose restrictions on social and economic life to contain the outbreak.

Congress, meanwhile, has struggled to end a months-long stalemate over economic assistance.

Disagreements remain over business liability protections demanded by Republicans and aid to state and local governments sought by Democrats before a final deal is reached on pandemic assistance.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Sharon Bernstein and Lisa Shumaker; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Steve Orlofsky and Tom Brown)

U.S. CDC reports 282,785 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday reported 14,823,129 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 186,215 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,532 to 282,785.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Dec. 7 versus its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Trisha Roy in Bengaluru)

U.S. CDC reports 281,253 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday reported 14,636,914 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 174,387 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,118 to 281,253.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Dec. 6 versus its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

Chile announces fresh lockdowns

By Aislinn Laing and Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s health authorities on Monday announced a fresh lockdown in the capital Santiago after coronavirus cases spiked 18% in the past week.

Health Minister Enrique Paris said the measure, which will involve a full lockdown on weekends and restricted activities during the week, was designed to avoid a full quarantine.

The coronavirus first hit Chile, population 19 million, in March, and the country reached a peak in June, with more than 5,000 cases daily and ranking only behind Qatar globally for cases per capita.

In August, authorities began lifting the lid on lockdowns covering the capital suburb by suburb, using a step-by-step rule, while the focus of cases bounced from the mine-heavy north of the country to the south, where hospitals continue to be saturated.

However, a steady uptick in cases that culminated in this week’s 18% rise has prompted a change in strategy.

Paris said the return to partial lockdown was a “preventative step” to avoid a return to the previous full and lengthy lockdowns that caused significant economic hardship.

“Given the number of inhabitants of the Metropolitan Region, that (18%) figure is shocking and worries us a lot,” he said.

The announcement is complicated, however – and Paris faced tough questions at his regular news conference – because a picture emerged over the weekend of Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera posing for a selfie with a bystander without wearing a mask.

Pinera has apologized, and a government spokesman explained he had been walking alone along the beach in the upmarket central Chilean resort of Cachagua where he has a house, but was surprised by a bystander.

Chile has strict rules that require the wearing of masks in all public places including outside, and violations are punishable with sanctions that include significant fines and even jail terms.

Spokesman Jaime Bellolio said the president would report himself to the health authorities.

Gaffe-prone Pinera has previously been pictured eating pizza on the night fierce social protests broke out in Santiago in October last year, and posing for pictures at the square that was the hub of the demonstrations after the pandemic forced its clearance.

(Reporting by Aislinn Laing; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Merkel warns Germany needs tougher lockdown to get through winter

By Andreas Rinke

BERLIN (Reuters) – German leaders came out on Monday in favor of stricter measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a few days after the country posted its highest one-day death toll so far.

Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues that existing lockdown measures – with bars and restaurants closed and shops admitting limited numbers – were too little to get the virus under control.

“The situation is getting very serious: these measures will not be enough to get us through the winter,” participants said she had told a meeting of her conservative bloc’s legislators.

Daily infections are no longer rising as sharply as previously in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, but they have stagnated at a high level and the highest single-day coronavirus death toll yet was reported last Wednesday.

Markus Soeder, premier of the southern state of Bavaria, which has the nation’s highest death toll, said he was certain regional and national leaders would agree tighter measures before Christmas. They had previously agreed not to revisit lockdown rules before Jan. 10.

Although vaccines that are expected to help contain the pandemic are on their way, available doses are limited, meaning that only certain groups, notably the very elderly, can expect to be inoculated during the winter, an expert panel ruled on Monday.

Meanwhile, some states are going further on their own initiative: Rhineland-Palatinate banned takeaway sales of mulled wine in a bid to discourage disease-spreading impromptu street parties.

From Wednesday, Bavaria will allow people to leave home only for essential reasons, while evening curfews are planned for hotspots with the highest infection rates.

Data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases on Monday morning showed the number of confirmed cases rose by 12,332 in the past 24 hours to 1,183,655. The reported death toll rose 147 to 18,919 – still well below that of large European peers such as Spain, France and Italy.

(Writing by Thomas Escritt and Caroline Copley Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Pandemic’s uneven march across U.S. paved way for wider outbreak

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nine months after the U.S. government declared a state of emergency to fight the coronavirus pandemic, daily deaths and new infections are breaking records, hospital capacity is more stretched than ever, and debate over the economic response has devolved into a battle over who deserves help and who doesn’t.

How did it get to this point? Once-in-a-century public crises might seem a natural rallying point for a nation, but the current pandemic hit a trifecta: a politically polarized society, the uneven spread of the virus, and an economic impact that was disparately felt and quick to fade in some parts of the country even as it kept others fast in its grip.

Today’s rampant spread of the virus is bound with those facts: Local and state decisions to let the economy reopen as much as it did, as soon as it did, with public health rules spotty and unevenly enforced, set the stage for it to rotate through the country and eventually to spread unchecked.

While that spurred more job creation early on, the country is now facing the worst of both worlds.

New COVID-19 cases are mounting at a rate of a million a week, and deaths have reached new peaks approaching 3,000 daily. Meanwhile, the economic recovery seems to be hitting stall speed. U.S. payrolls grew by only 245,000 jobs in November, scant progress given that net job losses since February still total around 10 million.

New data released in early December on state and metro level employment and wages by industry show just how unevenly the economic pain of those first months was spread.

Indeed, while workers in New York City, one of the early epicenters of the U.S. outbreak, struggled with economic conditions reminiscent of the Great Depression last spring, workers in Montana, on the whole, earned about as much in the three months from April to June as they did in the prior three months.

For workers in six western states, in fact, the second quarter of 2020 looked about the same as the second quarter of 2019 in terms of total wages collected, while in Nevada, Hawaii and Michigan wages were down more than 10% from a year earlier.

The jobs crash was painful everywhere, particularly in the industries where people would be most vulnerable to a communicable disease – the close-contact services like restaurants, grooming parlors and gyms.

Even in places where the initial crash was less intense, more than 8% of jobs were lost from February to April. At its worst, in the U.S. Northeast and Hawaii, more than 20% of jobs disappeared.

But the places that suffered the lightest initial blow also more quickly regained lost employment, and in some instances by June had nearly regained all the lost jobs in April’s wave of layoffs and closing. At that point the spread of the pandemic was also mild in those states, perhaps providing a reason to maintain a business-as-usual approach.

In urban areas the difference in outcomes was even more pronounced. Seasonal factors influence the numbers of jobs in some cities more than others. Beach towns and summer resorts see a bump when the weather warms. But comparing the number of jobs this June to a year ago shows how some fared better – or worse.

Atlantic City, New Jersey, an oceanside resort and casino hub, had only 66% of the jobs this past June that it did the year before. Cleveland, Tennessee, part of the U.S. South’s emerging auto industry, by contrast, had more jobs in June than it did a year before.

Industries also felt those first months of the pandemic very differently. At first blush, hiring in some seasonal industries proceeded apace, with drive-in theaters, for example, staffing up for the summer: Employment there more than doubled from February to June, possibly a sign of entertainment migrating outdoors. Still, even such an industry well-suited to the moment saw its employment drop compared with a year earlier.

By contrast, nursery and garden center employment rocketed nearly 30% from February to June – a typical summertime jump. Nonetheless, it was also 1.7% above the level from June 2019.

At the other end of the scale, industries in the food and entertainment sectors saw job losses that may amount to a permanent shift in the economy and where people work.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)

In silence, Greek city buries coronavirus dead

THESSALONIKI, Greece (Reuters) – Authorities in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki have dug dozens of graves for the victims of COVID-19 after a sharp increase in the number of deaths.

Greece has ordered a second nationwide lockdown after a spike in cases of the new coronavirus. By Thursday, it had recorded 111,537 cases and 2,706 deaths.

Thessaloniki, a city of about one million and where the first nationwide cases surfaced in February, has been particularly hard hit during the second wave.

“We didn’t encounter many cases in the first lockdown .. There were very few cases (then) and it wasn’t every day. These days it’s daily,” said funeral services provider Stavros Chatzivaritis.

“There are between five and eight funerals, almost every day.”

At the Resurrection of the Lord Cemetery in Thessaloniki, on the eastern side of Greece’s second largest city, many new graves have been opened. The Greek Orthodox chapel in the compound conducts funeral services, with pallbearers in full protective clothing.

The silence in its graveyard is punctured by the gentle chant of an Orthodox priest, or by the thud of the shovelled earth hitting the coffin, wrapped in plastic.

There are flowers, but grieving relatives are kept to a minimum and at a distance. “To my beloved,” wrote one on a wreath.

(Reporting by Alexandros Avramidis; Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

U.S. job growth slows sharply; long-term unemployment rises

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy added the fewest workers in six months in November, hindered by a resurgence in new COVID-19 cases that, together with a lack of more government relief money, threatens to reverse the recovery from the pandemic recession.

The closely watched employment report also showed a surge in people experiencing long periods of joblessness, putting pressure on Congress to come up with another rescue package.

The report only covered the first two weeks of November, when the current wave of coronavirus infections started. Infections, hospitalizations and death rates have sky-rocketed, leading some economists to anticipate a drop in employment in December or January as more jurisdictions impose restrictions on businesses and consumers shun crowded places like restaurants.

“This is a disappointing report, and one that shows the third wave of the pandemic is having a bigger effect on hiring than had been thought,” said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network. “Prospects for a continued strong recovery in consumer spending may be at risk. This is a wake-up call for the Congress and should support more Federal stimulus.”

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 245,000 jobs last month after rising by 610,000 in October, the Labor Department said on Friday. That was the smallest gain since the jobs recovery started in May. The fifth straight monthly slowdown in job gains left employment 9.8 million below its February peak.

Job growth last month was held back by further departures of temporary workers hired for the 2020 Census. States and local governments are also expected to have shed more workers, leaving overall government payrolls to drop by 99,000 jobs, the second straight monthly decline. The private sector added 344,000 jobs.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls would increase by 469,000 jobs in November. Hiring peaked at 4.781 million jobs in June. Reports on consumer spending, manufacturing and services industries have suggested a slowdown in the recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The United States is in the midst of a fresh wave of COVID-19 infections. Nearly 200,000 new cases were reported on Wednesday and hospitalizations approached a record 100,000 patients, according to a Reuters tally of official data.

A bipartisan, $908 billion coronavirus aid plan gained momentum in Congress on Thursday as conservative lawmakers expressed their support and leaders in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives huddled together.

More than $3 trillion in government COVID-19 relief helped millions of unemployed Americans cover daily expenses and companies keep workers on payrolls, leading to record economic growth in the third quarter. The uncontrolled pandemic and lack of additional fiscal stimulus could result in the economy contracting in the first quarter of 2021.

U.S. stock index futures sharply pared gains on the jobs report. The dollar was trading lower against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices were lower.

LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED

The unemployment rate fell to 6.7% from 6.9% in October. It, however, has been biased down by people misclassifying themselves as being “employed but absent from work.” Without this error, the government estimated the jobless rate would have been about 7.1% in November.

The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more jumped 385,000 in November to 3.9 million. These long-term unemployed accounted for 36.9% of the 10.7 million unemployed last month. The number of people working part-time for economic reasons was steady at 6.7 million.

Despite the ample slack in the labor market, average hourly earnings rose 0.3% after nudging up 0.1% in October. That left the year-on-year increase in wages at 4.4%. The average workweek was steady at 34.8 hours.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)