(Reuters) – The United States approved a total of more than 4 million coronavirus infections on Thursday since the first case of the United States was documented in January, according to a Reuters count, reflecting a national escalation of the pandemic.
FILE PHOTO: Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) arrive with a correctional patient at the North Shore Medical Center where patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are treated, in Miami, Florida, USA, 14 of July 2020. REUTERS / Maria Alejandra Cardona
It took the United States 98 days to reach one million confirmed cases of COVID-19, but only 16 days to increase from 3 million to 4 million, according to the count. The total suggests that at least one in 82 Americans has been infected at some point in the pandemic.
The average number of new cases is now increasing by more than 2,600 per hour across the country, the highest rate in the world.
As the epicenter of the US outbreak spread from New York to the south and west, federal, state and local officials clashed over how to ease the blockades imposed on Americans and businesses.
The requirements for residents to wear masks in public have become the subject of fierce political division, as many conservatives argue that such orders violate the United States Constitution.
United States President Donald Trump, a Republican who rejected a mask rule nationwide and was reluctant to wear it himself, this week reversed course and encouraged Americans to do so.
“We have to do our mitigation steps: wear a mask, avoid crowds. We will not see hospitalizations and deaths decrease for a couple of weeks because (they are) lagging indicators, but we are changing that trend, ”US Under Secretary of Health Brett Giroir told the Fox News Network in an interview. .
Giroir also pushed for faster test results, and Quest Diagnostics Inc (DGX.N), one of the nation’s largest medical testing companies, said Thursday it hopes to cut response times by one week for COVID-19 tests by more than half to reach “acceptable” levels in September.
GRAPHIC: Tracking the New Coronavirus in the US Here
SCHOOLS IN THE DEBATE CENTER
Trump said Thursday at a White House briefing that critical states may need to delay reopening schools for a few weeks, but pushed for most students to return to classrooms in the fall. [L2N2EU0ZP]
“They have to open,” he said.
Schools have become another point of discussion. In Florida, the state’s teachers union has sued to stop classroom instruction. Florida reported a record one-day increase in COVID-19 deaths Thursday to 173.
Florida’s health commissioner said earlier this month that schools should reopen, but Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said parents should have the option of keeping their children at home.
Trump administration officials have said a faster reopening is essential for the crater economy to move again, a central element of the president’s reelection campaign.
Trump also said he would no longer hold part of the Republican Party nomination convention in Florida in August due to an increase in coronavirus cases in the state.
“The timing for this event is not the right one,” Trump said at the White House briefing. “It just isn’t right with what happened recently, the outbreak in Florida. Having a great convention is not the right time. ” Trump has been holding his first coronavirus briefings in months without experts from his task force, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci, who became a household name in the early days of the pandemic, will launch the first ceremonial pitch Thursday on the opening day of the truncated Major League Baseball season in National Park in Washington, DC
Trump’s rival for the presidency, Democrat Joe Biden, criticized his handling of the pandemic in a campaign video broadcast Thursday.
In the video, Biden and former President Barack Obama discussed what they characterized as a failure by Trump to take responsibility for solving the crisis.
“Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying, ‘Isn’t it my responsibility?'” Biden asked Obama.
“Those words didn’t come out of our mouths when we were in office,” Obama replied.
FIGURE: Where Coronavirus Cases Are Rising in the United States Here
Reports by Lisa Shumaker in Chicago, Doina Chiacu and Katanga Johnson in Washington, Joseph Ax, Peter Szekely and Maria Caspani in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Written by Sonya Hepinstall and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Aurora Ellis and Bill Tarrant
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