COVID-19 in US: One Death Every 80 Seconds, New Report Says

By Mary Anne R. First Posted: Aug 06, 2020 02:32 AM EDT

One person died every 80 seconds from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States, according to a new tally showed on Wednesday.

The NBC News reported that the pace in which those 7,486 people who died seems to be accelerating. A total of 26,198 deaths were reported in July, showing that one death is being recorded every 102 seconds.

On Wednesday, more than 158,000 people in the U.S. died of the coronavirus ever since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new perspective has emerged on how COVID-19 in the U.S. are claiming more and more lives, as shown to a Johns Hopkins University report. The university said COVID-19 in the U.S. had reached another milestone as the world death number from this pandemic reached 700,000.

COVID-19 in the U.S.

The U.S. has reported more than 4.8 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease. Around 1.8 million from this number was recorded since July 7. According to an NBC News report, the three millionth case in the U.S. was reported on July 7.

Most of the new cases and deaths have been in the South and South Belt part of the country. However, northeast states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were hit hardest at the beginning of the pandemic. These states were able to flatten the curve and were worrying about the sudden rise in the number of cases.

President Donald Trump was criticized after initially downplaying the pandemic's effects, saying that it will eventually go away "like things go away."

Later on, Trump urged Americans to wear a mask as he said that COVID-19 in the U.S. would likely worsen before it gets better.

"Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, they have an effect, and we need everything we can get," Trump said in a report.

COVID-19 in the U.S. Southern Parts

In South Central Alabama, COVID-19 has been spreading in the community at an increasing pace.

The Guardian report said one in every 18 residents has tested positive of COVID-19. Alabama's Republican governor, Kay Ivey, had ordered a statewide mask to prevent the spread of the COVID-19.

July was considered the deadliest month for COVID-19 in Alabama as cases surged, disproportionately affecting African American residents, which make up 41 percent of the 1,580 deaths in the state.

The African American residents in Alabama make up only 26 percent of the entire population.

"Maybe it will help to de-escalate some of the political rhetoric around wearing a mask and doing other things that are necessary to win the battle in this pandemic," Reed said.

COVID-19 Testing in the U.S.

A Vox report said the country does not have systematic surveillance programs as it does for the flu to fill in the gaps, adding that the U.S. is in the dark about what's happening in many minority communities.

These minority communities have lower testing rates reportedly compared to white communities.

Sarah Cobey, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Chicago, said the lack of data feels like flying blind. Cobey added that they do not have good numbers to be starting at to guide them.

Aside from not having a good real-time data, there's also no right metrics on containment on the virus.

"We have understood from the very beginning that this the way this virus spreads fundamentally depends on behavior and politics. And our behavior changed in unprecedented, dramatic ways," Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas Covid-19 Modeling Consortium, said in the report.