For the first time, the United States reported more than 3,000 coronavirus deaths in a day. But with cases still rising, experts warn “the worst is yet to come.”
Lillian Blancas was a fighter, a proud daughter of immigrants, part of the first generation in her family to attend college and a lawyer in El Paso who was on the brink of fulfilling her dream of becoming a judge. Instead, Ms. Blancas,47, died alone in her hospital room this week, just before a runoff election on Saturday in which she was the favorite, becoming part of a grim cascade of Americans who have died from the coronavirus as it rages out of control. More than 3,000 deaths were reported on Wednesday for the first time since the pandemic began. “We’re completely devastated. Heartbroken. We can’t find a reason,” said her sister, Gabriela Tiemann, who recalled staring through the glass doors of Ms. Blancas’s hospital room, wishing that she could stroke her hair one last time. The new daily death record — 3,055 individuals who blew out birthday candles, made mistakes, laughed and cried before succumbing to the virus — far surpassed the spring peak of 2,752 deaths on April 15 and amounted to a stunning embodiment of the pandemic’s toll. In a single day, the country, numbed and divided, lost more Americans to the coronavirus than were killed in the Sept.11 terror attacks or the attack on Pearl Harbor. Catherine Troisi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston, said she had cried watching the faces of coronavirus victims on “PBS NewsHour” and expected the death toll to accelerate, in part because current numbers likely do not reflect infections from Thanksgiving gatherings. “The worst is yet to come in the next week or two or three,” she said. “What happens after that is going to depend on our behavior today.” The most recent deaths come as the country is recording more new cases and hospitalizations than ever before. More than 290,000 people have died in the United States during the pandemic. With a current average of more than 2,200 deaths per day, Covid-19 is, for at least this moment, surpassing heart disease and cancer as the leading killer in the United States. About 1,800 people on average die from heart disease each day, and 1,640 from cancer, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2018, the latest full data available. During yet another week, the virus took the lives of the young and the old, the healthy and the sick, the prominent and the ordinary people known best by those who loved them. Jamie Neff,50, of New Castle, Pa., was a cook who tinkered with his recipes to perfection and loved cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to his obituary.
