By September 5, the death toll could rise to 189,000, according to a projection from an ensemble of an ensemble by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 1,000 coronavirus deaths have been reported almost daily this month. Since July 27, only five days have been below that threshold.
Fallen and dead climb because a potential vaccine is still months away and as students return to school for personal classes amid growing outbreaks among younger populations.
‘We need to pass on to our young people’
While older Americans are more at risk for severe coronavirus disease, health experts and officials continue to warn that younger populations are at the forefront of their spread.
“We need to tell our young people that they are not immune to the virus,” said Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
The city has seen a steady increase in cases, which it attributed to 18 to 29-year-olds.
Early data led many experts to believe that children do not contract or spread the virus in the same way that adults do. But because more research has been done into their age group, that is changing beliefs, the CDC said.
“Recent evidence suggests that children are more likely to have the same as higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared to adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings,” the guide states.
The new guidance comes because many schools have opened their doors to bring students back for learning in person. Several have already experienced outbreaks, asking for quarantines and closures.
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which will begin its school year nearly this week, is launching a new program “that will provide regular COVID-19 testing and contact tracking to school staff, students and their families,” Superintendent Austin Beutner announced in a news release Sunday.
“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary action, and although this attempt at testing and contact is unusual, it is necessary and appropriate,” Beutner said.
Infections are reported when colleges reopen
Fakes are also refurbished at colleges and universities as students return to campus.
Oklahoma State University announced Sunday that at least 23 sorority members in an off-campus house tested positive for the virus. The entire house is in quarantined isolation and “will be banned from leaving the facility,” the university said.
Less than a week after starting classes, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced its fourth cluster of coronavirus on Sunday. The clusters were located at two residences, a private apartment complex serving students and the Sigma Nu fraternal.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defines a cluster as five or more cases in the neighborhood.
The latest cases come after some universities reported infections, even before the new school year began.
During the summer, at least 38 students living in 10 fraternal houses of the University of Washington tested positive for the virus. And officials at UC Berkley confirmed 47 cases in just one week in July. Most of those cases, the university said in a statement, came from “parties affiliated with the CalGreek system.”
Positive rates climb
Health officials are hoping a new detective test could give Americans a quick and inexpensive way to learn if they have Covid-19 and can help prevent increasing spread.
The SalivaDirect test, from researchers at the Yale School of Public Health, was approved Saturday for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration.
“If cheap alternatives like SalivaDirect can be implemented nationwide, we can finally get a grip on this pandemic, even before a vaccine,” said Nathan Grubaugh, a Yale assistant professor of epidemiology.
The test comes as frustration grows over testing delays and shortages. Seventeen states are doing fewer tests this past week compared to the previous week, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
But while testing has declined in those states, test positivity scores have increased in 34 states.
The test positivity rate is the percentage of tests that are performed that return positive for the virus. It is one of the metrics experts encourage officials to check when making decisions about resale.
A portion of Illinois will sit under new guidelines for three days in a row with a test positivity score of 8% or higher, according to a Gov. news release. JB Pritzker.
Beginning Tuesday, all bars, restaurants and casinos in the Metro East area of Illinois will close at 11 p.m. Party buses will be closed and meetings will be limited to 25 people or less, Pritzker said Sunday.
“If the data shows that we need to go backwards in our recovery, I will not care about strengthening restrictions to protect our collective health,” Pritzker said.
CNN’s Carma Hassan, Jennifer Selva, Chandler Thornton, Kay Jones, Alta Spells and Cheri Mossburg contributed to this report.
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