130,000 Americans are in the hospital for severe coronavirus infections
07 January 2021
Data: The COVID Tracking Project, Harvard Global Health Institute; Cartogram: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios
Deaths and severe illness from the coronavirus continue to set new records almost every day, especially in the South and the West.
The big picture: More than 130,000 Americans are in the hospital today with COVID-19 infections. That's straining several states' health care systems and will keep pushing the virus' death toll higher and higher.
By the numbers: In 34 states, coronavirus patients are occupying at least 10% of all hospital beds.
- Arizona, California and Nevada are in exceptionally bad shape — over 30% of all the hospital beds in each state are filled with coronavirus patients.
- 11 states are seeing more hospitalizations now than at any other point in the pandemic.
Why it matters: Hospitalizations are an indicator of severe infection. Mildly sick patients generally aren't hospitalized, especially in states that don't have the capacity to handle many more patients at all.
- And people who are sick enough to warrant a hospital stay are the patients most at risk of dying from the virus.
- The virus has already killed roughly 350,000 people in the U.S., and is killing about 3,000 people per day.
The bottom line: The U.S. just seems to have accepted that 3,000 people are going to keep dying every day, at least until we can all get vaccinated — assuming we're all willing to get vaccinated.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.