https://apnews.com/article/science-health-coronavirus-pandemic-6df4471c64e40e7e319ae368d4c1db0b
100,000 more COVID deaths seen unless US changes its ways
By CARLA K. JOHNSON and NICKY FORSTER
August 26, 2021
FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2021, file photo, two visitors peer into the
room of a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Salem Hospital
in Salem, Ore., as a nurse dons full protective gear before going into
the room of another patient. Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday, Aug.
25, 2021, that the state has contracted with a medical staffing company
to provide up to 500 health care workers to hospitals around the state
to help respond to the surge in patients due to the delta variant. (AP
Photo/Andrew Selsky, File)
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FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2021, file photo, two visitors peer into the
room of a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit at Salem Hospital
in Salem, Ore., as a nurse dons full protective gear before going into
the room of another patient. Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday, Aug.
25, 2021, that the state has contracted with a medical staffing company
to provide up to 500 health care workers to hospitals around the state
to help respond to the surge in patients due to the delta variant. (AP
Photo/Andrew Selsky, File)
The U.S. is projected to see nearly 100,000 more COVID-19 deaths between
now and Dec. 1, according to the nation’s most closely watched
forecasting model. But health experts say that toll could be cut in half
if nearly everyone wore a mask in public spaces.
In other words, what the coronavirus has in store this fall depends on
human behavior.
“Behavior is really going to determine if, when and how sustainably the
current wave subsides,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the
University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. “We cannot stop delta
in its tracks, but we can change our behavior overnight.”
That means doubling down again on masks, limiting social gatherings,
staying home when sick and getting vaccinated. “Those things are within
our control,” Meyers said.
The U.S. is in the grip of a fourth wave of infection this summer,
powered by the highly contagious delta variant, which has sent cases,
hospitalizations and deaths soaring again, swamped medical centers,
burned out nurses and erased months of progress against the virus.
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Deaths are running at over 1,100 a day on average, turning the clock
back to mid-March. One influential model, from the University of
Washington, projects an additional 98,000 Americans will die by the
start of December, for an overall death toll of nearly 730,000.
The projection says deaths will rise to nearly 1,400 a day by
mid-September, then decline slowly.
But the model also says many of those deaths can be averted if Americans
change their ways.
“We can save 50,000 lives simply by wearing masks. That’s how important
behaviors are,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences
at the University of Washington in Seattle who is involved in the making
of the projections.
Already there are signs that Americans are taking the threat more seriously.
Amid the alarm over the delta variant in the past several weeks, the
slump in demand for COVID-19 shots reversed course. The number of
vaccinations dispensed per day has climbed around 80% over the past
month to an average of about 900,000.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said Tuesday that in
Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, “more people got their
first shots in the past month than in the prior two months combined.”
Also, millions of students are being required to wear masks. A growing
number of employers are demanding their workers get the vaccine after
the federal government gave Pfizer’s shot full approval earlier this
week. And cities like New York and New Orleans are insisting people get
vaccinated if they want to eat at a restaurant.
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Half of American workers are in favor of vaccine requirements at their
workplaces, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research.
Early signs suggest behavior changes may already be flattening the curve
in a few places where the virus raged this summer.
An Associated Press analysis shows the rate of new cases is slowing in
Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas, some of the same states
where first shots are on the rise. In Florida, pleas from hospitals and
a furor over masks in schools may have nudged some to take more precautions.
However, the troubling trends persist in Georgia, Kentucky, South
Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming, where new infections
continue to rise steadily.
Mokdad said he is frustrated that Americans “aren’t doing what it takes
to control this virus.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “We have a fire and nobody wants to deploy a
firetruck.”
One explanation: The good news in the spring — vaccinations rising,
cases declining — gave people a glimpse of the way things used to be,
said Elizabeth Stuart of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, and that made it tough for them to resume the precautions they
thought they left behind.
“We don’t need to fully hunker down,” she said, “but we can make some
choices that reduce risk.”
Even vaccinated people should stay vigilant, said Dr. Gaby Sauza, 30, of
Seattle, who was inoculated over the winter but tested positive for
COVID-19 along with other guests days after an Aug. 14 Vermont wedding,
even though the festivities were mostly outdoors and those attending had
to submit photos of their vaccination cards.
“In retrospect, absolutely, I do wish I had worn a mask,” she said.
Sauza, a resident in pediatrics, will miss two weeks of hospital work
and has wrestled with guilt over burdening her colleagues. She credits
the vaccine with keeping her infection manageable, though she suffered
several days of body aches, fevers, night sweats, fatigue, coughing and
chest pain.
“If we behave, we can contain this virus. If we don’t behave, this virus
is waiting for us,” Mokdad said. “It’s going to find the weak among us.”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education.
The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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