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The United States now has 9 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, as infections continue to rise in nearly every state.
It took two weeks to hit the 8 million mark, the fastest jump of 1 million so far.
It had taken more than three weeks for the total to rise from 7 million to 8 million.
Armando Franca / AP
Nurses don medical aprons before caring for a patient inside a COVID-19 ICU at the Santa Maria hospital in Lisbon, on Friday, October 30, 2020.
Confirmed cases in the United States are increasing in 47 states. Deaths increased 14 percent in the past two weeks, averaging more than 800 per day.
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The virus has now killed more than 229,000 Americans.
San Francisco will temporarily halt the reopening of additional activities and businesses planned for next week due to an increase in rates of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the city’s mayor and health director said Friday.
That includes expanding the capacity to eat indoors in restaurants, places of worship and museums, among other businesses, as cases increase not only in San Francisco, but also in California and nationally, said Mayor London Breed and the director of public health, Dr. Grant Colfax.
Armando Franca / AP
Therapist Catia Jesus holds the hand of a patient inside a COVID-19 ICU at the Santa Maria hospital in Lisbon, on Friday, October 30, 2020.
San Francisco’s case rate has gone from 3 people in 100,000 to 4 people in 100,000 in the past two weeks, Colfax said, a 25 percent increase.
“We are still in the middle of a pandemic,” Breed said. “We are tired of Covid-19, but Covid-19 is not tired of us.”
The number of infections is believed to be much higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest that people can become infected with the virus without feeling sick.
In other parts of the world, Kenya has joined the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine trial, which was developed with the University of Oxford.
The Kenya Medical Research Institute says the first of 40 volunteers have been vaccinated and all are front-line healthcare workers.
It says another 360 volunteers will be recruited once the safety of the vaccine is confirmed. All will be monitored for more than a year.
Trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been conducted in South Africa, Brazil, and other countries.
The African government has been outspoken about the need for further vaccine trials on the continent of some 1.3 billion people.
Manu Fernández / AP
Civil Guard agents stop vehicles at a checkpoint in Somosierra, Spain, on Friday, October 30, 2020.
The announcement comes as the Kenyan government says a second spike in coronavirus cases has started in the economic hub of East Africa.
And in Europe, hundreds have gathered in central Barcelona to protest the mandatory closure of bars, restaurants and other businesses in the latest effort to curb the coronavirus.
The police have used truncheons to disperse protesters by throwing stones and metal fences around Barcelona City Hall.
Some of the protesters took off their masks and shouted “This is robbery! This is a fraud!”
The northeastern region of Catalonia has imposed some of the strictest measures, including shutting down the hotel industry, a 10 p.m. curfew and a ban on non-essential travel.
