'Never Felt This Kind Of Pain': A Virtual Goodbye Between Sisters

ACROSS AMERICA — Like so many thousands of Americans, Heather Hussli was forced to say goodbye to her sister, Heidi, through a computer screen.

Heather, waging her own battle with the coronavirus, watched over livestream as doctors unplugged the machine that helped her younger sister breathe. It was all happening in a Green Bay, Wisconsin, hospital room down the road; but no matter how much Heather wanted to be there, all she could do was watch.

When the feed went dark, Heather put her head in her hands and cried.

Just weeks earlier, the Hussli sisters had gathered to say goodbye to their mother, who died in August after months of declining health, Heather told The Washington Post. That time, they gathered in person. They wore masks, they socially distanced, but it wasn't enough.

Heather, Heidi and Heidi's husband all tested positive for the coronavirus.

Heidi — at 47 years old with no underlying health conditions — didn't get better.

In just 19 days, “half of my family was gone," Heather said.

Heather is grateful for the nurses who held her sister’s hand as she died, and the workers who facilitated the livestream. But it is not the way she ever imagined saying goodbye to anyone, much less her sister.

A good day now, Heather told the Post, is when she can get out of bed and work. But at night, she struggles to sleep, consumed with grief and lingering guilt.

“I have never felt this kind of pain,” Heather said. “No one should.”

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The Latest

While total U.S. cases have now exceeded 20.6 million, the number of lives lost to the coronavirus has surpassed 350,000. As families grieve, funeral homes are once again being forced to turn them away as states deal with a crippling rise in deaths.

California is among the states hardest hit. The head of the state funeral directors association told The Associated Press that mortuaries are being inundated, and some funeral home owners are saying they've never experienced anything like it.

"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,'" Magda Maldonado, owner of Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles, told The AP.

On Sunday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said a new confirmed case is being reported in the county every six seconds.

"This is something now that really is spreading in the home," Garcetti said on "Face The Nation." "It's a message for all of America: We might not all have the same density as L.A., but what's happening in L.A. can and will be coming in many communities in America."

As America leaves the holidays behind, some public health officials are still fearing what's to come: gatherings that no doubt will fuel a new surge of illness and death.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said on "Meet The Press" that what's to come is "terrible" but it's also predictable.

It's predictable likely because American airports recorded their busiest day of the pandemic on Saturday, with nearly 1.2 million passengers passing through security checkpoints, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Since Dec. 18, the agency has counted more than 16.3 million trips through its airport checkpoints, down from more than 35.4 million in the same period a year ago. Tens of millions more people were also expected to travel by car, the New York Times reported.

On Sunday, a top official for Operation Warp Speed floated one possible solution to protect Americans: halving the dose of each Moderna vaccine to potentially double the number of people who could receive it.

Data from Moderna's clinical trials showed that people between the ages of 18 and 55 who received two 50-microgram doses showed an "identical immune response" to the standard of two 100-microgram doses, said Dr. Moncef Slaoui.

Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, agreed that there might be more data to support a vaccine strategy that relied on half-doses rather than delayed doses.

"There is a path forward if you can show that two lower doses yield a similar immune response," Dean told the New York Times.

Fauci has expressed skepticism on the idea, however.

“I would not be in favor of that,” he told CNN, according to the NYT. “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”

So far, federal officials have failed to outline a plan for distributing vaccines to U.S. states.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that fines could be levied against hospitals that do not use up their vaccine supply by the end of the week, Reuters and others have reported. Those hospitals also risk getting cut off from future vaccine supplies, the governor said.

Meanwhile, overworked, underfunded state public health departments are scrambling to patch together plans for administering vaccines.

Amid the different approaches, a multitude of logistical concerns has complicated the process, leading to long lines, confusion, frustration and jammed phone lines.

Terry Beth Hadler, a 69-year-old piano teacher, stood in line overnight with hundreds of other senior citizens outside a library in Bonita Springs, Florida, waiting to get her shot. They were offered on a first-come, first-served basis to people over 65.

She wouldn't do it again. A brawl nearly broke out just before dawn when someone cut in the line. She also worried that she was in the middle of a superspreader event.

"I was petrified," she told The AP.

• Race To Vaccinate Americans Off To Slow, Messy Start

Newest Numbers

At least 1,453 deaths and 207,360 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the United States on Sunday, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows that over the past week, new daily cases increased by 20.6 percent, new daily deaths rose by 19.2 percent and new coronavirus-related hospitalizations increased by 5.7 percent.

Currently, there are more than 125,544 people hospitalized with a coronavirus-related illness in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

As of Monday, 47 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. Only North Dakota, Vermont and the District of Columbia are currently below that rate. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

As of Monday afternoon, the United States had reported more than 20.6 million cases and more than 351,800 deaths from COVID-19-related illnesses, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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