NOTHING TO CELEBRATE

America Ends the Year With Two Deadliest COVID Days in a Row, and the Worst Is Yet to Come

The outlook for the start of the new year is not good, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecasting 80,000 deaths in the next three weeks.

It’s tempting this New Year’s Eve to celebrate the end of a terrible year—but, unfortunately, things are set to get worse before they get better. For the second day running, the United States hit a new high for daily deaths related to the coronavirus, with 3,740 people losing their lives. The figure comes from pandemic trackers at John Hopkins University, and was tallied on the same day that California identified the nation’s second confirmed case of the new and seemingly faster-spreading variant of the coronavirus, suggesting it’s more widespread than previously realized. The outlook for the start of the new year is not good—according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecast, more than 80,000 Americans could die of COVID-19 over the next three weeks.