Deaths from COVID-19 in the United States averaged more than 1,900 a day for the first time since early March, and experts say the disease primarily affects a very specific group: the 71 million Americans who are not vaccinated. .
The increasingly deadly rebound has filled hospitals, complicated the start of the school year, postponed return to offices and affected the physical and mental capacity of health workers.
“It’s devastating,” said Dr. Dena Hubbard, a Kansas City, Missouri-area pediatrician who has cared for premature babies delivered by cesarean section in a desperate attempt to save their mothers, some of whom have died.
For health workers, the deaths, coupled with misinformation and skepticism around the virus, have been “heartbreaking and tragic.”
In a single week, 22 people died at CoxHealth hospitals in the Springfield-Branson area alone, a rate almost as high as in all of Chicago. West Virginia has reported 340 deaths in the first three weeks of September, more than in the previous three months combined. Georgia averages 125 deaths a day, more than California and other higher-population states.
“I have to say, you have to wonder if we’ll ever see the end of this,” said Collin Follis, a coroner for Madison County, Missouri, and a funeral home worker.
The nation was stunned in December, when it saw 3,000 deaths a day. But that was when hardly anyone was vaccinated.
Now, nearly 64% of the nation’s population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. However, the average daily death has risen nearly 40% in the past two weeks, from 1,387 to 1,947, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
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