100,000 dead in US, 100,000 cases in California: Where coronavirus pandemic stands
One hundred thousand.
Two different totals surpassed that milestone on Wednesday. After roughly 10 weeks of growth — explosive at some points, steadier at others — the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 100,000 on Wednesday, according to data maintained by Johns Hopkins University. The tally comes four months after federal officials confirmed the first known case in the country.
Almost simultaneously, Johns Hopkins showed California reaching a total of 100,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the highly contagious virus. The Golden State joins New York (at about 365,000), New Jersey (at more than 156,000) and Illinois (over 113,000) as states with six-figure infection totals, as nearly 1.7 million of the world’s 5.7 million confirmed cases have come in the U.S.
“The reality is this pandemic has just begun, it hasn’t ended,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during his daily coronavirus briefing on Tuesday. “And while we are moving forward because of stabilization, because of the good work that’s been done by health officials all across this nation, all across the state of California, specifically to suppress the spread of this virus by no stretch of the imagination, is this virus behind us.”
“And I just cannot be more, I think, precise in terms of my recommendation that all of us be sober about the reality of this disease and sober about the reality of lives that have been lost.”
Death toll likely far higher
Most health experts — including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert — say the death toll is probably far higher than what’s officially counted. People who haven’t been tested are dying at home and at nursing homes across the country, and early this year some coronavirus deaths were probably misidentified.
The toll exceeds the number of U.S. military combat fatalities in every conflict since 1950, including the Korean War, Vietnam War, two Persian Gulf conflicts and the War on Terror in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It matches the toll in the United States of the 1968 flu pandemic, and it is approaching the 116,000 killed in another flu outbreak a decade before that, according to the New York Times.
America’s death toll represents the highest confirmed mark of any nation so far, more than double the United Kingdom’s total of just over 37,500 fatalities. Globally, more than 353,000 people have died from the respiratory disease, with at least 25,000 deaths also recorded in each of Italy, France, Spain and Brazil.
California reopening
The grim numbers come as California and most other states are in the process of gradually reopening their economies after more than two months of shutting down effectively all industries not considered essential, and health experts warn of a possible resurgence.
Newsom’s administration, as part of a four-phase reopening plan that has since developed to allow for some variance from region to region, has allowed for in-store retail shopping and places of worship to reopen, subject to individual counties’ public health departments; and 47 of the state’s 58 counties that have filed “self-attested” reopening plans have permission as of Wednesday to reopen restaurants for sit-down service, and for haircuts to resume at barbershops and hair salons.
All of those reopenings have conditions though: guidelines containing requirements and strong recommendations spanning the topics of sanitation, facial coverings, occupancy limits and more have been issued by the state in each of those sectors, in an effort to maintain social distancing protocols and to continue slowing the spread of COVID-19.
Newsom has said in recent weeks that Californians have overall done a good job flattening, or “bending,” the pandemic’s growth curve, preventing the state’s hospital systems from becoming overwhelmed. But he and top state health officials have cautioned that too much too soon, in terms of reopening, will lead to a spike in cases.
Hospitalizations, deaths slowing
There have been glimpses of good news, but also fluctuations in the state’s coronavirus battle.
The state Department of Public Health, as of an update posted Wednesday, officially reported 98,980 positive cases and 3,884 deaths so far from COVID-19, with those tallies reflecting data from Tuesday. Close to half of the lab-confirmed cases (47,760) and more than half of the deaths (2,143) have come in densely populated Los Angeles County, where about one-quarter of the state’s 40 million residents live.
Of active cases, a total of 3,114 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized statewide, and of those, 1,095 were in intensive care units, an uptick of 1.7 percent and 2.1 percent in the past seven days. As of this point, total hospitalizations were highest at the end of April, with close to 3,500, and ICU cases peaked at around 1,240 on April 20.
California health officials reported just 19 deaths statewide in Monday’s update and 21 in Tuesday’s, the two lowest single-day death reports since the end of March. But the daily toll shot back up to 70 by Wednesday’s update.
An emphasis on diagnostic testing continues, and the state reports that close to 1.74 million tests have been conducted so far. Newsom has pointed to a goal of 60,000 daily tests. Between May 19 and this Tuesday, California conducted 356,774 tests, an average of just under 51,000 for the week.
The first two known, confirmed coronavirus deaths in the United States are believed to have occurred in California in February. Following autopsies by its coroner’s office and tissue testing, Santa Clara County in late April announced the death of a 57-year-old woman on Feb. 6 and a 69-year-old man on Feb. 17 due to COVID-19.
Grim numbers in other states
According to Johns Hopkins University’s world and U.S. COVID-19 dashboard webpages, the United States’ 100,000 deaths are topped by about 29,000 in New York state, 11,000 in New Jersey, 6,400 in Massachusetts, 5,300 in each of Michigan and Pennsylvania, and about 5,000 in Illinois. After that, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Florida and Ohio report between 2,000 and 4,000 dead, according to Johns Hopkins.
Georgia, Texas, Colorado, Virginia and Washington state range from 1,000 to 2,000 dead. Minnesota, Arizona, North Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Alabama and Wisconsin report over 500 dead, according to Johns Hopkins.
Iowa, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Nevada, Kentucky, Tennessee, Delaware, New Mexico, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Arkansas and Utah reported between 100 and 500 deaths as of Wednesday afternoon.
Dozens have died in each of Maine, Idaho, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont. Hawaii, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska each report between 10 and 20 COVID-19 deaths.
At least six have died in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and five have died in Guam.
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
