Data from Johns Hopkins University showed the US passed 350,000 deaths early on Sunday morning. More than 20 million have been infected. According to the Covid Tracking Project, 123,614 people were hospitalized on Saturday.
The U.S. has also begun using two coronavirus vaccines, manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, aimed at protecting healthcare workers and nursing home residents with the first rollout, however, there have been some major glitches in the rollout of the vaccines.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 4,225,756 first doses of the vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech had been administered as of Saturday morning – out of 13,071,925 distributed, reports The Guardian.
A number of states reported a record number of cases over the past few days, including North Carolina, with a total of more than 558,000 cases and a positivity rate of 15.5 percent. Arizona also has a record number of cases, with nearly 8,900 additional Covid-19 cases and 46 deaths reported on Saturday.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said his state had recorded more than 1 million confirmed cases, after adding 15,000 new cases on Friday. This makes New York the fourth state to reach one million coronavirus cases, after California, Texas and Florida.
Healthcare in Southern California is at a crisis level due to COVID-19. The US Army Corps of Engineers crews arrived on Saturday to help hospitals update their oxygen delivery systems. Some hospitals were having difficulty keeping up with the demand for oxygen tanks for patients to take home.
On Saturday the California state health department reported more than 53,341 new cases, bringing the total to 2.3 million. There have been 26,357 confirmed deaths in the state as of Saturday.
Mortuaries are filling up with the bodies of the deceased and Southern California funeral homes are turning away bereaved families because they are running out of space for the bodies.
Trump’s false Twitter claims
Even as the coronavirus ravages states across the country, giving the United States the highest death toll in the world, followed by Brazil, with 195,000 deaths, President Trump took to Twitter early Sunday to spread false information and outright lies about the vaccine rollout and the number of deaths recorded in the country.
The number of cases and deaths of the China Virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of Covid.” Fake News!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2021
According to CNN News, Trump claimed the number of cases and deaths of the “China Virus is far exaggerated” because of the CDC’s “ridiculous method of determination” compared to other countries, which “report, purposely, very inaccurately and low.”
“‘When in doubt, call it Covid,’ ” Trump wrote in a tweet. Trump has retweeted social media conspiracy theories in the past, saying that only a small percentage of the people reported to have died from coronavirus really did die from the virus.
