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When the time passed to zero in 2020, the nation watched the ball drop in Times Square – on television, from home – and said good riddance to a year marked by a brutal pandemic that has forced shutdowns, crushed many businesses and killed 350,000 Americans.
So far, 2021 has brought little relief. And on Friday night, the United States crossed the dark threshold of 700,000 coronavirus deaths, including 350,000 more this year.
The United States reached 600,000 deaths in June, as the daily death toll fell to less than 400 and many were optimistic the end of the ruthless global crisis was near, at least at home. The vaccines were widely available to all American adults and adolescents. Free.
More than three months and 100,000 deaths later, 2,000 Americans die every day. And millions of people have lost interest in the fight. Football stadiums are teeming with maskless fans, some in states that ban vaccinations and mandatory masks.
Soon it will be winter, the indoor halls will draw crowds and people will go inside to socialize. All of this increases the risk of transmission, said Ogbonnaya Omenka, associate professor and public health specialist at Butler University in Indianapolis.
Reaching 800,000 dead is no small feat, and the specter of a million dead looms.
“Given current rates and expectations, the possibility of reaching 800,000 by the end of 2021 is not unreasonable,” Omenka said. And beyond that, “because the ending depends mainly on human preferences, we can reach that number (1 million)”.
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Dr Eric Cioe-Peña, director of global health at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York, agrees.
“I think it is realistic that we are seeing more outbreaks, especially in counties with low vaccination rates, and that we are hitting 1 million dead,” he said. “I hope not, and I think we still have the capacity to end this pandemic in the United States and around the world.”
Vaccinations were a game-changer, but many Americans balked. And people who are vaccinated can spread the virus and get sick on their own, we have learned. The “breakthrough” infections among those who received the jabs are troubling. Now booster shots are the ideal solution.
“I honestly thought we were going to unite as a nation and beat this,” Cioe-Peña said. “There’s a big part of me that can’t believe we’re here.”
So how did we come to this?
The numbers have continued to increase
The pandemic started with little global fanfare in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, and has quickly swept the world. In the United States, a wave of defenses ranging from lockdowns, social distancing and masks to vaccines and now boosters have so far failed to end it.
The first known COVID-19 death in the United States was reported in early 2020. In March of the same year, Dr.Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that 100,000 to 200,000 people could succumb to the disease. .
At the end of May 2020, the death toll in the United States was 100,000 – an average of more than 1,000 deaths per day. Four months later, we hit 200,000, and Fauci was grimly suggesting that deaths in the United States could be as high as 300,000 to 400,000.
Three months after that we hit 300,000, and in five more weeks – in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency – COVID-19 had claimed 400,000 lives in the United States.
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In February, the death toll had reached 500,000. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, then suggested in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that herd immunity was close.
“In the current trajectory, I expect COVID to be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to return to normal lives,” Makary wrote.
It was before, it is now. Melissa Nolan, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, said early models indicated a one-year transmission cycle for the coronavirus, which “n ‘unfortunately not what has become reality’.
Noah Greenspan is a cardiovascular physiotherapy specialist who has been treating “long-haul” COVID-19 for over a year. When its Manhattan-based pulmonary rehabilitation and wellness center closed in March 2020, it planned to reopen a few weeks later.
“I never thought it would be permanent,” he said.
Greenspan says the lack of preparation and resources has overwhelmed all aspects of the healthcare system.
“I also think that due to the misinformation, poor messages and political positions, it was very difficult to get reliable advice on what we should and should not be doing, from masks to social distancing to vaccines, ”said Greenspan.
Cioe-Peña blames the lack of a coordinated response across the country and around the world.
“A lack of clear communication and vaccine deployment,” he said. “A lack of fundamental government accountability in supporting public health and clear, common sense policies that both support people during the pandemic and interrupt transmission. “
Why transmission rates have resurged
The development of more easily transmissible variants, like the delta variant, fueled the resurgence of the transmission. The loss of natural immunity over time in unvaccinated people who were previously infected continued the cycle of transmission, Nolan said.
The variants appear to be receiving help: No state government has considered a lockdown, although case and death records have been made. Heads of state in some of the hardest hit states have banned local governments and schools from requiring masks.
Perhaps more importantly, the promise of safe, powerful, and free vaccinations has failed to crush the pandemic as millions of Americans refuse to be vaccinated. America now gives fewer first-dose vaccines in a week, about 1.5 million, than it once gave in a typical day, about 2 million.
Even some healthcare workers get vaccinated. Thousands of them are at risk of losing their jobs in New York State, where vaccines became mandatory just days ago.
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Human behaviors, international travel results, vaccination success rates and new variants are among the keys that will determine where the pandemic is going, experts say.
“I support all Americans when I say that I hope we never see 1 million deaths,” Nolan said, adding that current models predict a drop in COVID-19 cases and deaths. But that assumes that no additional variant becomes a significant factor in global transmission, she said.
Three new variants are appearing in South America: mu, iota and gamma. Nolan said the majority of the world sees the delta as the dominant variant, which will eventually disappear. But if one of the new variants sets in and starts roaming populations and geographic regions, “we could see a resurgence.”
Greenspan says that as long as there is strong resistance to vaccines, masking, social distancing “and pretty much every other recommendation made by almost everyone, I see no reason why anything would change.” .
So what is for sure?
Major League Baseball games were played in front of large crowds all summer long. The National Football League played in front of packed halls. But Cioe-Peña says it’s time to curb mass rallies. Making vaccination compulsory for all is “the only way out”, and the only way to secure mass activities, he said.
“Then we can start to get back to normal, like filling the stadiums,” he said. “Without a vaccine requirement, filling in stages is definitely not a good idea.”
Small gatherings, such as restaurants and cinemas, also carry risks. New York City requires proof of vaccination for indoor dining and Broadway shows. But some states prohibit such warrants. Omenka says that public policy decisions are difficult because of the inseparable relationship between the pursuit of public health and money and socialization.
“It is up to individuals to take charge of their health … by making informed decisions about their health and safety,” Omenka said.
Will the pandemic ever end?
The end of the pandemic has been a moving target from the start. Masks and social distancing were the world’s first cure, but every time the curve of infections – and then deaths – headed down, a “surge” pushed it up. The Delta variant was the fourth or fifth wave, depending on who counts, and no one can say for sure that it will be the last.
Omenka said it was difficult to anticipate what was to come due to the “myriad of uncertainties” surrounding the virus and the US response to it.
“But if we don’t get it under control, it is like allowing all the numbers to continue to rise,” Omenka warned.
Experts say COVID-19 may never go away completely, but they almost universally agree on how to end the pandemic. Cioe-Peña said it means a concerted effort to get people, including children, vaccinated and break the cycle of infection and reinfection.
The data supports his claim. In Mississippi, the state with the lowest immunization rate when the Delta wave began three months ago, about 1 in 1,439 residents have since died. That’s about eight times the death rate for the most vaccinated state, Vermont, where about 1 in 11,555 residents have since died.
“Get vaccinated, get vaccinated, get vaccinated,” Nolan said.
Contribution: Mike Stucka
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19 deaths in the United States reached 700,000. When will the pandemic end?
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