Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca are checked as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)
Magda Maldonado, owner of Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles, poses in her mortuary on Dec. 30, 2020. Southern California funeral homes are turning away bereaved families because they’re running out of space for all the bodies piling up during an unrelenting coronavirus surge that has sent COVID-19 death rates to new highs. "I’ve been in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think that this could happen, that I’d have to tell a family ‘no, we can’t take your family member,’" said Maldonado. (Magda Maldonado via AP
Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agios Vlasios receives an injection with a dose of COVID-19 vaccine, at Evangelismos hospital, in Athens, Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020. Doctors, nurses and the elderly rolled up their sleeves across the European Union to receive the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine Sunday in a symbolic show of unity and moment of hope for a continent confronting its worst health care crisis in a century. (Alkis Konstantinidis/Pool via AP)
Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca are logged by a technical officer, as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)
A health worker engages in a COVID-19 vaccine delivery system trial in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021. India tested its COVID-19 vaccine delivery system with a nationwide trial on Saturday as it prepares to roll-out an inoculation program to stem the coronavirus pandemic. Saturday’s exercise included necessary data entry into an online platform for monitoring vaccine delivery, along with testing of cold storage and transportation arrangements for the vaccine, the health ministry had said.(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
BALTIMORE — The COVID-19 death toll in the United States has surpassed 350,000 as experts anticipate another surge in coronavirus cases and deaths stemming from holiday gatherings over Christmas and New Year’s.
Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows the U.S. passed the threshold early Sunday morning. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected. The U.S. has begun using two coronavirus vaccines to protect health care workers and nursing home residents and staff but the rollout of the inoculation program has been criticized as being slow and chaotic.
Multiple states have reported a record number of cases over the past few days, including North Carolina and Arizona. Mortuary owners in hard-hit Southern California say they’re being inundated with bodies.
The U.S. by far has reported the most deaths from COVID-19 in the world, followed by Brazil, which has reported more than 195,000 deaths.
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