1500 deaths a day as south of the US hit by Delta variant

The fatality rate is four times what it was a year ago with more than a fifth of victims in Florida.

A Covid-19 test is administered at a drive-through site in Miami, Florida, last week. Picture: AFP

Daily deaths from Covid-19 in the US have risen above 1500 for the first time since March as the Delta variant takes its toll mainly in the poorly vaccinated South.

The fatality rate is four times what it was a year ago, with more than a fifth of victims in Florida, where the state’s leadership is trying to prevent masks being mandated in schools. Florida reported 5721 deaths in August, exceeding the previous monthly high of 5469 deaths in January before vaccines were widely available.

Cases are rising across the US but northern states with higher vaccination rates have not had the same rise in deaths. Alabama’s top health official warned that “there is no room to put these bodies”, while a central Florida hospital system bought 14 portable morgues to deal with “unprecedented” deaths. In Miami-Dade, the most populous county in Florida, 15 state school staff died of Covid-19 in 10 days. Of the 14 states with the highest death rates last week, only Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming are outside the South.

Health officials repeated a warning against using bogus treatments amid evidence that ivermectin, a livestock and pet dewormer, with no proven efficacy against Covid-19, continues to be in high demand.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that almost 90,000 prescriptions for ivermectin were written in one week in mid-August, up from a weekly average of 3600, while animal supply stores have been selling out. The drug is approved for human use to treat parasite infections but can have unpleasant side effects.

Its use has been promoted by celebrities such as Joe Rogan, one of the country’s most popular podcasters, as well as conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones, who took a couple of ivermectin pills during his InfoWars webcast last week.

This followed a warning by the Food and Drug Administration urging Americans not to take the drug to treat or prevent Covid-19.

“You are not a horse. You are not a cow,” the agency said. “Animal drugs are highly concentrated for large animals and can be highly toxic in humans.”

An Oklahoma hospital system rejected claims by an emergency room doctor on Sunday that it was struggling to treat seriously injured patients because its beds were full of people who had overdosed on ivermectin.

The fourth wave has contributed to a drop in approval for President Joe Biden.

Approval for his handling of the pandemic has dropped to 52 per cent from 62 per cent in late June, when he said the nation was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus”. Mr Biden has repeatedly urged Americans to get vaccinated and wear masks. Fifty-three per cent of the population is fully vaccinated including 64 per cent of those over 18.

Anxiety about the virus is rising, a Washington Post/ABC News survey found. Forty-seven per cent of Americans rate their risk of getting sick from coronavirus as moderate or high, up 18 points from late June.

The poll found that younger Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, one of the most vaccine-hesitant groups, had become more willing to get jabbed. But there was still some strong resistance among the unvaccinated: about 70 per cent said they would probably quit if their employer required them to be vaccinated.

The Times