‘It’s punishing’: Covid killing one-two Americans every minute, says WHO chief as death rate hits levels not seen since April

'It's widespread. It's quite frankly shocking,' says Dr Michael Ryan

Healthcare worker Demetra Ransom comforts a patient in the Covid-19 ward at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on 4 December (AFP /AFP via Getty Images)

New coronavirus cases and deaths are reaching levels not seen since the peak of the first wave in April, with just weeks to go until families and loved ones gather for the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Covid-19-related deaths have climbed to more than 2,200 a day, while new infections are being recorded at an average of 200,000 every 24-hours for the first time, official figures show.

States from California to Massachusetts are reporting growing numbers of cases, as hospitals in cities across the country edge towards breaking point.

Some 284,000 Americans have died with Covid-19, with 100,000 more currently hospitalised with the disease. CDC officials are due to meet with Pfizer this week to discuss an emergency approval application for the company's vaccine.

"The epidemic in the US is punishing. It's widespread. It's quite frankly shocking to see one to two persons a minute die in the US — a country with a wonderful, strong health system, amazing technological capacities," said Dr Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization's chief of emergencies.

On Thursday, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is widely expected to authorize emergency use of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, and shots could begin almost immediately after that. Britain on Tuesday started dispensing the Pfizer vaccine, becoming the first country in the West to begin mass vaccinations.

Still, any vaccination campaign will take many months, and US health experts are warning of a surge in the coming weeks, in part because of Americans' disregard of warnings not to travel over Thanksgiving. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, said the upcoming holiday season could compound the crisis even more than Thanksgiving did.

"It's a very critical time in this country right now," he told CNN on Monday.

The WHO's Dr Ryan said that the US is accounting for one-third of all world cases over the last several weeks and that the "brutal reality" is that holiday hugs are ill-advised.

In Georgia, the number of confirmed and suspected coronavirus infections has soared more than 70 per cent in the past week, and hospitals are sounding alarms about their ability to absorb new patients.

The stage is averaging more than 5,000 confirmed and suspected cases per day. Even then, Georgia ranks only 44th among the states for the most new cases per capita in the past 14 days because infections are spreading so rapidly everywhere else.

Georgia is likely to record its 10,000th confirmed or suspected death from Covid-19 sometime this week. The state topped 500,000 confirmed or suspected infections overall on Sunday.

More than 2,500 COVID-19 patients were hospitalised Monday statewide. That's below the summer peak of 3,200 but more than double the most recent low point in mid-October.

"We are effectively reversing the gains we made after the summer surge," said Amber Schmidtke, an epidemiologist who does a daily analysis of Georgia's numbers.

Health experts warn that well after the vaccine arrives in the US, masks and social distancing will remain vital to bringing the coronavirus under control.

In Pennsylvania, overwhelmed hospitals may have to begin rationing care and turning away patients, governor Tom Wolf warned Monday, calling it a "dangerous, disturbing scenario."

"If the worst happens, hospitals will not be able to treat all sick Pennsylvanians," he said. "They'll be forced to turn away people who need treatment, and that means more Pennsylvanians will die."

Even with that stark warning, Mr Wolf, a Democrat, all but ruled out a return to the kinds of statewide restrictions he imposed last spring, when schools were closed, thousands of businesses deemed nonessential were shut down, and all 12.8 million Pennsylvanians were under a stay-at-home order.

In Nevada, the number of people hospitalized with the disease has more than tripled over the last month, as did the number of patients needing ventilators.

Additional reporting by Associated Press