'Soul-crushing': US COVID-19 deaths are topping 1,900 a day

FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2021, file photo, an employee of a local funeral home covers the body of a COVID-19 patient patient who died as he prepares to take it away from a loading dock, at the Willis-Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport, La. COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have climbed to an average of more than 1,900 a day for the first time since early March, with experts saying the virus is preying largely on a select group: 71 million unvaccinated Americans. FILE - In this Aug.

“It is devastating," said Dr. Dena Hubbard, a pediatrician in the Kansas City, Missouri, area who has cared for babies delivered prematurely by cesarean section in a last-ditch effort to save their mothers, some of whom died. For health workers, the deaths, combined with misinformation and disbelief about the virus, have been "heart-wrenching, soul-crushing."

Now, nearly 64% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. And yet, average deaths per day have climbed 40% over the past two weeks, from 1,387 to 1,947, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Many low-vaccination communities also have high rates of conditions like obesity and diabetes, said Dr. William Moss of Johns Hopkins. And that combination — along with the more contagious delta variant — has proved lethal.

In Kansas, 65-year-old cattleman Mike Limon thought he had beaten COVID-19 and went back to work for a few days. But the virus had “fried" his lungs and he died last week, said his grandson, Cadin Limon, 22, of Wichita.

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