- The US
coronavirus outbreak set grim records Wednesday: 2,804 American deaths and more than 100,000 activeCOVID-19 hospitalizations. - The US has recorded the most cases and deaths of any country, and officials are issuing dire warnings about the months ahead.
- But President
Donald Trump is barely mentioning the virus, still fixating on his election loss a full month after voting ended. - On Wednesday, Trump released a 46-minute speech — which he termed the "most important" of his life — that clearly showed his priorities.
On Wednesday, the US passed two grim milestones showing how its coronavirus outbreak continues to spiral.
That same day, however, President Donald Trump's focus was elsewhere - disputing the outcome of an election that took place a full month ago.
As US healthcare workers and officials are giving dire warnings that the pandemic will worsen still, Trump is almost totally disengaged.
Devastating records
According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the US reported 2,804 coronavirus deaths on Wednesday - a record far exceeding the daily tolls when the pandemic took hold in the spring.
Here is the graph showing the new high:
The future trajectory looks bleak too - according to The COVID Tracking Project, as of Wednesday, for the first time, the US had more than 100,000 active COVID-19 hospitalizations.
While treatments are better than they used to be, the grim reality is that many of those hospitalized will not leave alive.
Throughout the pandemic, Trump has taken a relatively hands-off approach.
After a period of daily public coronavirus briefings, advisors began to note his going longer and longer without even speaking with his coronavirus task force, and he began to rarely mention the virus in public.
Since the November 3 election - in which voting ended exactly one month ago - Trump's detachment has grown, as he has focused increasingly on groundlessly disputing his loss to Joe Biden.
A brief exception was to cheer positive results from vaccine trials, which consisted of his seeking to claim credit for the breakthroughs while baselessly suggesting they were purposely held back until after the election.
On Wednesday, as the US passed its bleak coronavirus milestones, Trump's attention to the election at the expense of the virus seemed to peak as well. The president posted a 46-minute speech to Facebook in which he repeated his baseless claims disputing the result. He suggested that it might be "'the most important speech I've ever made."
Trump's claims have been dismissed by both Democratic and Republican state election officials and, this week, even by his own attorney general.
His Wednesday address did mention the coronavirus - he described it as a "pretext" or "excuse" to secure his departure from the White House. The only victim of the virus he mentioned was himself.
While Trump repeated claims of a constitutional crisis, health officials spoke of a different one.
Hospital systems, morgues, and the 911 emergency call system are being overwhelmed.
The US has recorded the most coronavirus cases and deaths of any country, but it may yet get worse. Millions of people traveled across the US for Thanksgiving, which is expected to contribute to still more devastation.
Biden, the president-elect, warned this week that the US death toll could double in the next two months.
"We're likely to lose another 250,000 people dead between now and January," he said. "You hear me? Because people aren't paying attention."
The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said the winter months could be "the most difficult in the public health history" of the country.
But its leader's priorities are evidently elsewhere.
Editor's note: Earlier on Wednesday, Johns Hopkins University listed 3,157 coronavirus deaths as taking place on Wednesday. Business Insider has updated this article to reflect the newer figure of 2,804 deaths.