The polar cold wave that hits much of the United States has left at least 23 dead in different incidents and almost four million homes without electricity, while it has begun to hamper vaccination against COVID-19.
The storm ‘Uri’, which has 105 million people on alert in different parts of the center, south and east of the country, has already left a score of deaths in different incidents such as falls, fires in homes without electricity, poisoning with monoxide carbon in attempts to generate heat, car accidents or accidents, reports ‘The New York Times’.
Low temperatures have also frozen energy sources on Tuesday and left almost four million homes without electricity, three million of them in the state of Texas, which has prompted the governor, Greg Abbott, to call for investigations and reforms in the Texas Electrical Reliability Council, as, in their words, “the grid has been anything but reliable in the last 48 hours.”
Meanwhile, in places like Houston, the lack of energy has flooded hospital emergencies with patients affected by carbon monoxide, as some inhabitants have resorted to “dangerous” methods to keep warm before the freezing temperatures, according to different professionals. sanitary.
DELAY IN VACCINATION
On the other hand, bad weather has hampered the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 in points such as Miami Dade County, where about 2,000 people will not receive their second dose when they were scheduled due to delays due to the storm, according to reports CNN.
The same occurs in Colorado, where the arrival of 133,000 vaccines will be affected in the coming days, while Ohio could suffer a two-day delay in the delivery of the immunizer, according to its governor, Mike DeWine.
Also, more than 73 percent of the country’s mainland has been covered in snow this Tuesday, according to the Office of Water Prediction of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with layers in 45 of the 48 states in the area.
This Tuesday, at least 20 cities have also suffered the coldest weather in their history. Temperatures in the center of the country have plummeted to lows not seen in a century, with less than 14 degrees in Oklahoma.
After leaving significant damage in the south of the country this week, the storm moves northwest on Tuesday, leaving heavy snow and ice along the way, while millions of people are forecast to continue to suffer from its low temperatures until the end of the week, according to CNN .
“Significant accumulations of snow, sleet and freezing rain will spread over most of the Mid-South on Wednesday and Thursday,” said the National Weather Service. Specifically, storm warnings are in effect for parts of Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and all of Arkansas.
HELP PREPARED
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, who declared a state of emergency in Texas, has spoken this Tuesday with the governors of the states affected by the storm and has reiterated that the Administration is prepared to respond to requests for assistance, according to details a statement from the White House.
He has also guaranteed that he will deploy any additional federal resources available to help residents “weather this historic storm.”
In this regard, he has also shown his gratitude to all the workers who are responding to the storm, who “are taking swift action in horrible conditions to save lives.”
