The BulleTin • Wednesday, June 16, 2021 A13
U.S. COVID-19 deaths hit 600K
BY JANIE HAR AND MICHAEL
KUNZELMAN
The Associated Press
The U.S. death toll from
COVID-19 topped 600,000
on Tuesday, even as the vac-
cination drive has drastically
brought down daily cases
and fatalities and allowed the
country to emerge from the
gloom and look forward to
summer.
The number of lives lost, as
recorded by Johns Hopkins
University, is greater than the
population of Baltimore or
Milwaukee. It is about equal to
the number of Americans who
died of cancer in 2019. World-
wide, the COVID-19 death toll
stands at about 3.8 million.
The milestone came the
same day that California and
New York lifted most of their
remaining restrictions, join-
ing other states in opening
the way, step by step, for what
could be a fun and close-to-
normal summer for many
Americans.
“Deep down I want to re-
joice,” said Rita Torres, a re-
tired university administrator
in Oakland, California. But
she plans to take it slow: “Be-
cause it’s kind of like, is it too
soon? Will we be sorry?”
With the arrival of the
vaccine in mid-December,
COVID-19 deaths per day in
the U.S. have plummeted to an
average of around 340, from a
high of over 3,400 in mid-Jan-
uary. Cases are running at
about 14,000 a day on average,
Joanna Moore
writes a trib-
ute to her
cousin Wilton
“Bud” Mitch-
ell, who died
of COVID-19,
on Nov. 24 at a
symbolic cem-
etery created
in Miami to re-
member and
honor lives lost
to COVID-19.
Breach
Continued from A1
Since the breach, Elekta
has implemented additional
security enhancements to
prevent future incidents,
Canzeri said. According to
Elekta’s website, the breach
affected the company’s
North American custom-
ers. Patients or their family
members have been given
directions on how to obtain
free access to identity mon-
itoring, fraud consultation
and identity theft resto-
ration, Anders said.
“The security and privacy
of our patient information
is something we take ex-
tremely seriously, so we use
robust digital systems to
screen our vendors for se-
curity protocols and tools
to monitor compliance,”
Anders said in an email.
“We are in a constant state
of process improvement
and are currently evaluating
even better screening and
monitoring software.”
e
Reporter: 541-633-2117,
sroig@bendbulletin.com
Lynne Sladky/AP
Storms
Continued from A1
down from a quarter-million
per day over the winter.
The real death tolls in the
U.S. and around the globe are
thought to be significantly
higher, with many cases over-
looked or possibly concealed
by some countries.
President Joe Biden ac-
knowledged the approaching
milestone Monday during his
visit to Europe, saying that
while new cases and deaths
are dropping dramatically in
the U.S., “there’s still too many
lives being lost,” and “now is
not the time to let our guard
down.”
The most recent deaths are
seen in some ways as especially
tragic now that the vaccine has
become available practically
for the asking.
More than 50% of Ameri-
cans have had at least one dose
of vaccine, while over 40% are
fully vaccinated, according to
the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention.
But demand for shots in the
U.S. has dropped off dramati-
cally, leaving many places with
a surplus of doses and casting
doubt on whether the country
will meet Biden’s target of hav-
ing 70% of American adults
at least partially vaccinated by
July 4. The figure stands at just
under 65%.
As of a week ago, the U.S.
was averaging about 1 million
injections per day, down from
a high of about 3.3 million a
day on average in mid-April,
according to the CDC.
At nearly every turn in
the outbreak, the virus has
exploited and worsened in-
equalities in the United
States. CDC figures, when
adjusted for age and popula-
tion, show that Black, Latino
and Native American people
are two to three times more
likely than whites to die of
COVID-19.
Also, an Associated Press
analysis found that Latinos are
dying at much younger ages
than other groups. Hispanic
people between 30 and 39 have
died at five times the rate of
white people in the same age
group.
Overall, Black and Hispanic
Americans have less access to
medical care and are in poorer
health, with higher rates of
conditions such as diabetes
and high blood pressure. They
are also more likely to have
jobs deemed essential, less able
to work from home and more
likely to live in crowded, mul-
tigenerational households.
Any amount of light-
ning is concerning for
U.S. Forest Service of-
ficials as they moni-
tor wildfire activities
in the region, said Jean
Nelson-Dean, spokesper-
son for the Deschutes Na-
tional Forest.
None of the lightning
strikes led to fires, but the
Forest Service still tracks
where and when lightning
strikes, Nelson-Dean said.
“Anytime we get light-
ning, of course there’s al-
ways the potential for fire
starts,” Nelson- Dean said.
The storms that came
through Bend last week
resulted in 0.28 of an
inch of rain, according to
weather service meteo-
rologist Mary Wister. The
rainfall was a welcome
sight for the region, which
is experiencing extreme
drought, but the rain did
very little to help the dry
conditions, Wister said.
“We will take what we
can get, but it will take a
lot more,” Wister said.
Wister and other
weather service meteo-
rologists in the Pendleton
office were busy Tuesday
monitoring storms across
Central and Eastern
Oregon. They recorded
golf ball-sized hail in the
Blue Mountains and lin-
gering storms in the Cas-
cades. By the end of the
day, most of the storms
had moved out of the
area.
“Things are starting
to calm down, which is
good,” Wister said. “The
system is moving out of
the area and we are get-
ting a dry, westerly flow.”
e
Reporter: 541-617-7820,
kspurr@bendbulletin.com