Two people dying every minute: US COVID-19 deaths shatter more records

US leaders urgently called on Americans to wear masks and threatened even more drastic stay-at-home orders after deaths from the coronavirus set another single-day record, with two people dying every minute.

President-elect Joe Biden promised a new national strategy that will impose mask mandates where he will have authority, such as federal buildings and for interstate travel, once he takes over for departing President Donald Trump on January 20.

Beyond the mandate, he urged people to voluntarily wear masks, seeking to counter lax public discipline to date and Trump’s own timid endorsement of mask-wearing.

“On the first day I’m inaugurated … I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100 days to mask, not forever, 100 days,” Biden said in an interview on last Thursday. “And I think we’ll see a significant reduction if we incur that – if that occurs, with vaccinations and masking, to drive down the numbers considerably.”

Biden said he would be happy to get vaccinated publicly, as former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have pledged, in order to boost public confidence and persuade vaccine sceptics.

Other public figures have followed, including best-selling novelist Stephen King.

Vaccine demand to exceed early supplies

The US government’s first shipment of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses is expected to be shared by states and federal agencies, including the Department of Defence. But it will fall far short of protecting high priority groups such as healthcare workers, a Reuters analysis has found.

But 66,000 people could be saved if the share of Americans wearing masks in public rose to 95 per cent in the next week.