The United States reached another dark moment in the COVID-19 pandemic over the weekend.
The nation eclipsed an average of 1,500 COVID-19 deaths per day, the first time the mark has been reached in six months.
When the 1,500 figure was last reached in March, though, the vaccines were not as widely available as they are now.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also reports that deaths increased by 131 percent in August compared to previous months.
After the pandemic looked like it was nearing its end in late spring and early summer, the virus has roared back after a Delta-variant fueled summer surge.
Unvaccinated Americans across the country have been hard-struck by the virus, accounting for nearly all deaths and hospitalizations from the virus in recent months.
Some counties have even have to employ mobile morgue units to store the overwhelming amount of dead bodies.
More than 1,500 Americans are dying from COVID-19 every day, the highest daily total since March. Many of the deaths are concentrated in the U.S. South. Pictured: A COVID-19 patient in Miami, Florida, is brought into an ambulance
Hospitalizations nationwide have spiked as well, with August having double the amount of COVID-19 patients admitted than June did.
Florida is currently the state suffering the most deaths from the virus.
The state is recording 335 deaths every day, the highest raw total of any state, and 1.56 deaths per every 100,000 residents, also the highest in the nation.
Like Florida, many other southern states are also among the nationwide leaders in deaths during the first week of September.
Central Florida has especially been hammered, and 14 mobile morgue units were deployed to the Orlando area late last month to handle the increase in deaths.
Day-to-day Covid data is not available in Florida, though, after halting daily reporting of data in early June.
Just to the north, Georgia has deployed mobile morgue units as well to deal with the rising COVID-19 deaths.
The state is averaging 78 deaths per day, 0.73 of every 100,000 residents, the seventh highest rate of any state the start off the month.
In total, the Sunshine State has recorded 3.3 million cases of the virus and 46,324 deaths since the pandemic began in March 2020.
In Georgia, 42 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, a mark well behind the national pace of 52 percent.
The Peach State was also recording a record amount of cases last week, though the state did not report cases over the weekend so whether the totals continued to grow is not yet known.
Georgia has recorded 1.4 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 22,000 deaths since the pandemic began 17 months ago.
Mississippi, one of only four states in America with less than 40 percent of the population fully vaccinated, is among those leading in deaths as well.
Just over 37 Mississippians are dying from the virus every day, or 1.25 out of every 100,000 people. Both figures only trail Florida nationwide.
Gov Tate Reeves made interesting comments at the end of August, saying that his constituents were less afraid of death because of their religious belief that there was an eternal life in heaven waiting for them after dying on earth.
‘When you believe in eternal life – when you believe that living on this earth is but a blip on the screen, then you don’t have to be so scared of things,’ Reeves said at a fundraiser.
He did say that God wanted people to take some precautions against death, though.
More than 8,500 Mississippians have died from the virus so far, with more than 447,000 cases recorded as well.
Louisiana is the only other state averaging more than one death per every 100,00 residents at the moment.
Currently, just under 50 people are dying from the virus every day.
The state is in an especially dire circumstance after Hurricane Ida swept through at the end of August.
Many Louisiana hospitals were already at or near capacity when Ida arrived, leaving them scrambling to treat patients in critical condition as the storm made landfall.
The hurricane caused power outages across the state as well, reducing hospital capacity and forcing many patients to be moved in order to continue treatment.
The Advocate reports that 200 of nearly 15,000 hospital beds were removed due to the hurricane, exacerbating an already dire situation.
In total, the state has recorded nearly 700,000 COVID-19 cases and over 12,000 deaths over the past 17 months.
Other southern states like South Carolina (0.91 deaths per 100,000 residents), Texas (0.85) and Arkansas (0.84) also make up the seven states accounting for the most deaths in the country.
As a whole, the U.S. is recording 0.47 deaths out of every 100,000 people.
These states also do not report daily COVID-19 data, making day-to-day changes in case rate unavailable.
The rise in deaths corresponds with a rise in hospitalizations as well.
More than 102,000 American are hospitalized with the virus, and 75 percent of hospital beds nationwide are currently in use.
Nationwide, the U.S. has recorded over 40 million COVID-19 cases and 648,000 deaths from the virus, the most of any nation in the world in both categories.
The CDC reported a promising figure on Thursday, though, that more than 80 percent of Americans have some sort of protection from the virus, whether through vaccination or natural antibodies.
