90,000 in Next 3 Weeks

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More than 90,000 Americans might die in the next three weeks the CDC has reported. More than 38,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 in the first two weeks of the new year. Currently, more than 130,300 people are hospitalized with the virus, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.

New York City is about to open Yankee Stadium as a vaccination site and in California Disney Land is also to become a vaccination site. Disney Land is slated to become the states first super vaccination site, able to vaccinate upwards of 7,000 people each day. California has lagged behind it’s planned vaccination rate, doling out around a third of its doses so far. Fast efficiency distribution of the vaccine has been a problem across the country.

Perhaps Disney World will also become a vaccination site here in Florida but the parks have been packed at the start of the New Year with tourists to profit from people who are stiff crazy from the pandemic.

Besides the 20,000 National Guard now in Washington D.C. there are also National Guard troops helping administer the vaccines in 16 states and territories. CVS Pharmacy has reported that they should be able to administer 25 million vaccinations a month, but that program is not off the ground yet. What is needed is a unified National plan but the POTUS has denied the virus and left it up t each state to figure out ho to distribute vaccines. The result is anarchy. In New Jersey, smoking is considered to be a pre-existing condition and therefor smokers are moved to the front of the line for a vaccine.

I have a sister in South West Florida still struggling to try and get vaccinated. It has become her full time job. She had an appointment set up for January 14, 2021 but got a call back from the health department and was told that they had run out of vaccine. She is now on a list and might be called when more vaccine comes in. Shipments of the virus are not expected for two weeks.

Joe Biden is planning  1.9 Billion dollar COVID Relief plan that includes $1400 stimulus checks and an additional $160 billion for a national vaccine program, including $20 billion for distribution, and an additional $50 billion for expanded testing. The plan also calls on Congress to invest $170 billion in K-12 schools and higher education, including $130 billion for schools to safely reopen. Unfortunately we have six more days to wait before he and Kamila Harris are inaugurated.

Daily COVID-19 Deaths Surpass 9/11 Attack

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The New York Times reported that at least 3,011 Americans died Wednesday, December 9, 2020, the most deaths in any single day of the pandemic. Over the past seven days, an average of 2,249 Americans have died from COVID-19 each day, the Times reported.

On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people died when terrorists crashed two commercial airliners into the Twin Towers. It is very possible that we will keep experiencing the carnage of a 9/11 every day as the numbers keep rising exponentially.

The U.S. also reached a record high Wednesday with more than 106,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

For 30 years, the World Trade Center Plaza showcased a 25-foot, bronze sculpture known as The Sphere sculpted by German artist Fritz Koening. The bronze sculpture took four years to create.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the towers, the sculpture was damaged but largely intact. It was carted away and stored at a JFK storage facility for a year. It was then moved to Battery Park along with an eternal flame. AS the memorial was built people kept petitioning to move the sculpture back to the World Trade Center site. in 2017 it was finally returned to a site outside the 9/11 memorial. Unfortunately the artist Fritz Koening had died earlier that year so he never got to see the sculpture’s return. The sculpture was not rebuilt or refurbished. It remains as a symbol of hope despite the scars of a horrific event. Hopefully we can also recover from the horror that COVID-19 continues to ravage on the county.

Every Minute

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The U.S. Centers of Disease Control (CDC) reported that the United States is now averaging one COVID-19 related death every minute. The pandemic is increasing in severity as we head into the winter months.

The virus has causes 69,000 deaths in nursing homes as of November 15, 2020. The latest COVID-19 pandemic death toll for the U.S. stands at 267,302, with 1,251 new deaths being reported in the 24 hours leading up to Tuesday, December 1, 2020.

Hospitals in the Midwest are being overrun by  the increasing demand. COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising amid shortages of nurses and other health care workers, the situation in some places is becoming severe. If things don’t change, hospitals will have to ration care by turning patients away. COVID-19 deaths, have climbed more than 40% over the past two weeks and set records last week in places like Wisconsin. The Dakotas and Wyoming had the country’s highest infection rates last week, but Iowa and Wisconsin weren’t far behind, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

There is light at the end of the tunnel with vaccines becoming available. But the three of four month until those vaccines can be distributed to people, will be the darkest months of this pandemic. “We have not even come close to the peak and, as such, our hospitals are now being overrun,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm of Biden’s  coronavirus advisory board. The United States is headed for a COVID Hell.

Cold Storage

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650 bodies remain in a disaster morgue in refrigerated trailers on the Brooklyn waterfront. In April 800 people were dying a day in NYC from COVID-19. Many of these bodies have been in cold storage since that time. This disaster morgue was set up for people whose families can’t be located or can’t afford a proper burial, officials said. Some of those families can’t be located because they died form COVID-19 as well.

At first mass burials were held at Hart Island for those who were not claimed by family. However Manhattan Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged that mass burials in temporary graves wouldn’t take place after footage of the mass burials taken by a drone were shown on social media.

NYC is slowly reducing the number of bodies in storage, with the number declining from 698 to 650 since mid-September, according to Dina Maniotis, the chief medical examiner’s office’s executive deputy commissioner.

In Texas, inmates are paid $2 an hour to move bodies to mobile morgues in freezer trucks. The sheriff’s office said the use of the inmates began on November 9 , 2020 on a volunteer basis. While prison labor is a common practice across the U.S., the reliance on inmates to handle the task of moving the corpses of COVID-19 victims is raising questions about the ethics of such work. El Paso County in Texas has about 34,000 active COVID-19 cases, with more than 1,100 people in hospitals, according to local health data. Since the pandemic began spreading widely in March, the county has recorded 769 deaths due to COVID-19. El Paso now has 10 mobile morgues. The National Guard was was then called in to to help move bodies.

With the present surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitals in the Midwest are reaching capacity and they are short on staff. More than 68,500 are hospitalized with Covid-19 across the country, more than at any other point during the pandemic, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic. 19 percent of American hospitals are faced a staffing shortage. We should expect many more hospitalizations, and even worse staffing shortages, to come as the virus burns across the country largely unchecked.

Experts are advising people to stay at home for the Thanksgiving holiday to help slow the spread, but millions of Americans are ignoring the advice of public health experts and traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. More than 1.04 million people went through airport security checkpoints Sunday November 22, 2020, the most since mid-March.

Donald Trump Jr. Infected

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Donald Trump Jr. 42, tested positive for COVID-19 at the start of this week and has been quarantining at his hunting cabin since the result, a spokesman said.

Don Jr. is the second of the president’s children to test positive. Barron Trump, 14, was also diagnosed last month, but made a swift recovery.

Don Jr’s partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host, tested positive for the disease in July, and also recovered. He apparently did not contract the infection at the time. Last month, Don Jr was criticized for downplaying the US COVID-19 death toll.

The virus has infected 11.8 million Americans and killed more than 253,000. On Friday November 20, 2020, 192,000 people in the US tested positive for COVID-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

Don Jr said he will spend his time in isolation cleaning his guns. He has said that Covid-19 deaths in America are “almost nothing”. 1000 people died that day. Twitter has had to limit Don Jr’s account for promoting COVID-19 misinformation. In total, at least 45 people connected to the White House have tested positive for the virus in recent months.

Waiting Room

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People are dying still thinking the COVID-19 virus is a hoax. When it is clear a COVID-19 patient will not survive, hospital staff can only stop the drips, turn off the ventilator and wait. I started this sketch after hearing that doctors had to use Halloween masks since they had run out of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). Doctors and nurses resorted to using plastic page protectors as face shields as well as ski goggles, plastic garbage bags and duck tape.

If our first responders were sent to war they would be given  the necessary equipment like guns,  helmets and grenades but doctors and nurses had to make do with what they could find or cobble together. They had to rely on sewing circles to create cloth masks. It is a sad reminder of our countries priorities. The stock market seems more important than human life. Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla sold company shares worth $5.56 million,  the same day the drug maker reported positive data on its experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

I began too wonder if vintage plague masks could be retrofitted to act as PPE. The beak-like masks were once filled with aromatic items like herbs, straw, and spices which were intended to protect the wearer from putrid air.

With hospitals across the county reaching a “tipping point,” where some patients have to wait for someone to die before they can be treated. Texas has the most COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the U.S., according to the COVID Tracking Project.  In Star County Texas, a committee was formed which would decide which COVID-19 patients are likely to die and those patients would be sent home to die with family. Most people die alone unable to be visited by family.

As of November 9, 2020, hospitalizations are rising in 47 states, according to data collected by The COVID Tracking Project, and 22 states are seeing their highest numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations since the pandemic began. Research found that a 1% increase of COVID-19 patients in a state’s ICU beds will lead to about 2.8 additional deaths in the next seven days. Hospitals in Northwest Wisconsin were full to capacity, as of November 12, 2020 with 100% of its beds filled in the region. Approximately 300 hospital staff in the area are on work restrictions due to exposure to Covid-19. The worst is yet to come.