US Tops 4,000 Daily Deaths From Coronavirus

Christine Scott, an ICU nurse (L), with her sisters Althea Scott-Bonaparte and Claudia Scott-Mighty, who are patient care directors, arrived to get their second shot of the Pfizer vaccine at NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, N.Y., on Jan. 8, 2021. (Kevin Hagen/AP Photo).

The United States has topped 4,000 daily deaths from the coronavirus for the first time, breaking a record set just one day earlier.

The tally from Johns Hopkins University shows the United States had 4,085 deaths Thursday, and had nearly 275,000 new coronavirus cases as well.

The numbers are another reminder of the worsening situation following travel for holidays and family gatherings, along with more time indoors during the winter months. There’s been a surge of cases and deaths in California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.

More than 365,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus.

Doctors inject sisters Claudia Scott-Mighty (L), Althea Scott-Bonaparte, who are patient care directors, and Christine Scott, an ICU nurse, with their second shot of the Pfizer vaccine at NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, N.Y., on Jan. 8, 2021. (Kevin Hagen/AP Photo).

San Francisco faces a surge in coronavirus cases. California has been issuing waivers allowing hospitals to temporarily bypass the nation’s only strict nurse-to-patient ratios.

Nurses say that being forced to take on more patients is pushing them to the brink of burnout and affecting patient care.

At least 250 of about 400 hospitals in California have been granted 60-day waivers. They allow ICU nurses to care for three instead of two people and emergency room nurses to oversee six patients instead of three.  Nurses in other states have demanded law-mandated ratios like those in California but so far have failed to get them.

A CDC map shows that Florida had 22 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant that emerged in the UK. California has reported 26 cases, Colorado has two, and New York and Georgia have each reported one case.

The Florida Department of Health on Thursday reported 19,816 cases—surpassing the previous record set the day before of 17,783. On Friday, 7,329 people in Florida were hospitalized with the virus.

The state has registered 1.4 million cases, with a confirmed death toll of 22,400.