America could see a mammoth death count of 450,000 from the coronavirus after the winter months if proper social-distancing measures and mask-wearing aren’t uniformly practiced, as the virus has triggered unseen infectious waves across the country leaving hospitals and morgues swamped in capacity.

Robert Redfield, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director, dubbed the next three months as “rough times” and “the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

"I do think, unfortunately, before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans dead from this virus,” he said Wednesday during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event.

The United States closed in on its highest-ever single-day death toll on Wednesday, as the country reported 2,804 new deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the country’s total pandemic death count to 273,446, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The United States has over 13.9 million confirmed coronavirus cases, with an average of more than 160,000 new infections per day.

“I think we have two-three very hard months ahead,” Howard P. Forman, professor of Public Health, Radiology, and Management at Yale University, said in an interview via email.

Forman pointed to states who experienced infectious turmoil during the first and second waves of the deadly disease like New York, New Jersey, Texas, Florida and California “that makeup almost half the nation” and emphasized that they  “are just beginning to surge” again.

“This means, in my opinion, that we will continue to see surging (with some brief pauses) in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths until more active measures are taken or a vaccination program is in place,” he added.

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, noted that “the epidemic can be suppressed,” with the help of “intensive public health measures (testing, tracing, quarantining, physical distancing, face-mask wearing, public health surveillance),” actions that countries in the Asia-Pacific region have taken. In fact, several of those countries reported zero deaths on Tuesday, the same day the United States saw a massive spike in deaths.

Nearly 37,000 Americans died from the virus in November alone, although the figure was significantly lower than the 60,699 deaths reported in April at the height of the pandemic. In May, there were almost 42,000 deaths in the United States from the coronavirus, followed by more than 20,000 in June when small businesses shuttered and stay-at-home orders were implemented.

Hospitalizations across the country have also swelled, with Redfield warning that 90 percent of hospitals remain in the red zone, with more than 90,000 people hospitalized.

As of Thursday, there are more than 100,000 people hospitalized due to the coronavirus, the highest it’s ever been, according to The COVID Tracking project. States have initiated plans to reopen field hospitals to manage the flood of patients that have forced nurses and doctors to work endless hours to help treat those infected.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Guard pumped cots, medical supplies and other hospital needs to build a 250-bed field hospital as cases and hospitalizations stress the state’s capacity, as reported by the Associated Press.

In several other states—including Rhode Island, Wisconsin and New York—health officials have constructed field hospitals to take and treat the influx of coronavirus patients. A Nevada hospital is currently using a nearby parking garage as another area to store sick patients, as beds within the hospital’s walls are exhausted, the Associated Press reported.

California—which became the first state to report more than 100,000 cases in just one week on Sunday, according to a New York Times database—is projected to see hospitalizations triple by Christmas, with the state’s governor warning that severely infected people from the coronavirus may put overloaded hospitals in a tight position to reject patients due to lack of bed capacity and medical staff like nurses and doctors. But California health officials can’t just call in medical professionals from other states to aid the hospital crisis, as states across the United States are experiencing similar disasters.

The coronavirus pandemic has also impacted memorial services, with some families choosing to postpone burials and funeral homes offering the option to stream the service live to reduce in-person congestion.

The Associated Press reported that burials increased by about 33 percent at the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis this year compared to last year, with nearly twenty people’s cremated remains still in storage until the pandemic is under deeper control. 

At a hospital in Missouri, a mobile morgue was activated to store bodies until funeral home workers could retrieve them.

With the virus on an explosive rampage, Redfield, Forman, Sachs and other health experts have continued to urge Americans to use masks and practice social-distancing to tame the devastation in hospitals and contain the disease’s spread across the country, until at least the first batch of vaccinations becomes widely available. 

“The truth is, mitigation works. The challenge with this virus is, it’s not going to work if half of us do what we need to do. It’s not even going to work, probably if three-quarters of us do what we need to do. This virus really is going to require all of us to really be vigilant,” Redfield said.

Rachel Bucchino is a reporter at the National Interest. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report and The Hill.

Image: Reuters