Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (US)
Dec 12, 2020
A wave of mass death is spreading throughout the world. While the coronavirus pandemic is once again devastating Europe and Latin America, the epicenter is in the United States.
Yesterday, the US total death toll surpassed 300,000, or nearly one out of every one thousand people. There were another 3,019 deaths and a record 246,000 new cases. Approximately 125 people are dying every hour, or more than two every minute. At least 17,000 people have died in the past week alone. These figures are expected to rise sharply in the coming weeks. The current case count is only beginning to reflect the surge due to Thanksgiving travel toward the end of November, and the death rate lags two weeks behind.
The situation is made vastly more dangerous as patients overflow hospitals, and the health care system begins to break down, forcing doctors and nurses to make the horrific decisions about who will be treated and who will not. At least 200 hospitals in the US were at full capacity last week, and one-third of all hospitals in the country have more than 90 percent of their ICU beds occupied.
The media focus in the US and Europe has been on the initial approval and distribution of a vaccine. However effective a vaccine, people will benefit from it only if they are alive to receive it. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield warned on Thursday that “for the next 60 to 90 days we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor,” and that a vaccine will have no real impact on the death toll for at least 60 days—and likely far longer.
Read more at www.defenddemocracy.press
