As of Jan. 19, 2021, the number of deaths in the United States due to infection with the Chinese Communist virus (Wuhan pneumonia) topped 400,000. Pictured are the bodies being transported by personnel associated with Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral, a funeral home located in Brooklyn, New York City, on April 2 last year.
According to Johns Hopkins University, as of 11:30 a.m. EDT on April 19, more than 95,725,830 people have been diagnosed with the Chinese Communist virus (Wuhan pneumonia, COVID-19) and more than 2.04 million (2,045,389) have died worldwide.
Of these, more than 24 million have been diagnosed in the United States, and the number of deaths has jumped from 300,000 in mid-December last year to 400,000, making the United States the deadliest country in the world. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that as many as 477,000 people will die by Feb. 6.
Public health England (PHE) said that 1,610 people died in the UK on the 19th, the highest number of deaths in the UK on a single day since the outbreak, bringing the total cumulative number of deaths to 91,470. British nurse CARLEEN KELLY said, “I never thought there would be so many intensive care patients, I never thought.”
Ireland also recorded its highest daily death toll since the start of the pandemic on the 19th, with 93 deaths in a single day. Ireland’s health services are facing unprecedented challenges as the number of seriously ill patients has increased dramatically since late December.
In France, 23,608 new cases were diagnosed and 656 deaths were recorded on the 19th. Cumulatively, 2.97 million people have been diagnosed and more than 70,000 have died. French Health Minister Olivier Véron said on the 19th that 1.4% of the cases diagnosed last week were infected with the British variant of the virus.
Véron pointed out that the virus is spreading at a worrying rate, with the number of infections threatening to reach 50,000 per day, and that authorities are avoiding a situation similar to that in the UK.
Brazil added 62,094 confirmed cases on the 19th, a sharp rise in the number of confirmed cases compared to the 23,040 reported on Monday and the 23,671 reported on Sunday. In addition, 1,192 new deaths were reported on the 19th, bringing the total cumulative death toll to 211,491.
In Israel, 10,021 new cases were diagnosed on the 18th, the highest number since the beginning of the pandemic. So far, 562,167 people have been diagnosed and 4,049 people have died in Israel.
Also last week, 2.5 million cases of Covid-19 were reported in the Americas, accounting for more than half of all infections worldwide, according to Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), at a virtual news conference on the 19th.
Etienne also warned that in some areas of Peru, intensive care unit utilization is at 90 percent, while some areas of Brazil and Ecuador are near their capacity. In addition, most beds in Mexico City are also occupied by Covid-19 patients, and hospitals in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay face similar challenges in accommodating capacity.
Etienne noted that the discovery of new Covid-19 variants in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil is worrisome, and “they may play a role in accelerating new infections in the region.”
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and coronavirus adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, also said Sunday via CNN’s “New Day” that “Based on the experience we’ve seen in Europe (especially South Africa), we’ll suddenly find these variants playing a role, and these variants will increase the number of cases dramatically.”
He added, “The fear is that in the next 6 to 12 weeks we will see this pandemic situation unlike what we have seen so far.” This will be a challenge, he said, but one that most people are not yet aware of.
Salim Abdool Karim, co-chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC), said on the 18th that the South African variant, which was sighted a month ago, has a more stable and powerful ability to adsorb human host cells and therefore has a 50% higher transmission capacity than the non-variant strain, and while there is no evidence yet that it is more lethal, the natural antibodies generated in people who have recovered from previous infections with the non-variant strain are known to offer less protection against the South African variant.
Alex Sigal, a virologist on the advisory board, also said that “the world has underestimated” the evolving virus, which “has found a way to get rid of previous antibodies.
South Africa, with a population of nearly 59.7 million, has so far diagnosed more than 1.346 million people and has accumulated more than 37,000 deaths, making the epidemic much more severe than in other African countries.
Note: The true numbers of the epidemic in China are not available to the outside world because the Chinese Communist Party is concealing them.
Recent Comments