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New confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the US have risen to an all-time high of more than 86,000 per day on average, in a look at the worsening crisis looming for the winner of the presidential election.
Cases and hospitalizations are setting records across the country just as the holidays and winter approach, demonstrating the challenge President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will face in the coming months.
Rick Bowmer / AP
A woman inserts her ballot into a ballot box in Salt Lake City.
Daily new confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. have risen 45% in the past two weeks, to a record 7-day average of 86,352, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths are also increasing, up 15 percent to an average of 846 daily deaths.
The total death toll in the United States is already more than 232,000 and the total number of confirmed cases in the United States has exceeded 9 million. Those are the highest totals in the world, and new infections are on the rise in almost every state.
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Several states reported disappointing numbers Wednesday (local time) that are fueling national trends. Texas reported 9,048 new cases and 126 deaths, and the number of coronavirus patients at hospitals in Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma set records. About a third of the new cases in Texas occurred in El Paso, where a senior health official said hospitals are at a “breaking point.”
Public health experts fear potentially dire consequences, at least in the short term.
Trump’s current term doesn’t end until January 20. In the 86 days until then, 100,000 more Americans are likely to die from the virus if the nation does not change course, said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health. at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, echoing estimates by other public health experts.
Rick Bowmer / AP
A public health nurse with the Department of Health conducts a coronavirus test outside the department in Salt Lake City.
“Where we are is in an extremely terrible place as a country. Every metric we have is going in the wrong direction. This is a virus that will continue to grow at an accelerating rate and will not stop on its own, ”said Dr. Leana Wen, a public health expert at George Washington University.
Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association, said there are things Americans can do now to help change the trajectory.
“Regardless of the election outcome, everyone in America needs to buckle up,” Bailey said.
“Many of us have relaxed a bit with physical distancing, not washing our hands as often as we used to, maybe not wearing our masks as faithfully. We must all realize that things are escalating and we must be more careful than ever, ”he said.
Polls showed that the public health crisis and the economy were the top concerns for many Americans.
They are competing issues that Trump and Biden see through drastically different lenses.
Trump has ignored the advice of his top health advisers, who have issued increasingly urgent warnings in recent days about the need for preventative measures, instead holding rallies where face coverings were rare and falsely suggesting that face coverings were rare. the pandemic is waning.
In contrast, Biden has rarely been seen in public without a mask and has made public health a key issue. It is not known whether his voice will have much influence if Trump is declared the winner.
“President Trump has already made it clear what his strategy is for Covid-19, which is to pretend there is no contagious virus around us,” Wen said. Trump has been promoting treatments and vaccines, which will not be widely available to all Americans until at least mid-2021, he noted.
“There is a lot of suffering that is going to happen before then that could have been prevented,” Wen said.
Rick Bowmer / AP
Public health nurses from the Department of Health observe during coronavirus tests outside the department in Salt Lake City.
Federal health officials have said they believe a vaccine could get an emergency use authorization before the end of the year. The first dose-limited supplies would be distributed immediately to the most vulnerable populations, likely to include front-line health workers. Then the doses would gradually increase.
The schedule depends on having a vaccine that has been shown to be safe and effective, which experts say is still not a certainty. “The vaccine has to move at the speed of science,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean of public health practice at Johns Hopkins University and former chief of the Maryland state health department.
On the treatment front, the makers of two experimental antibody drugs have asked the Food and Drug Administration to allow emergency use of them for people with mild to moderate COVID-19, and Trump, who received one when he was got sick last month, he said he wanted them to be available immediately.
So far, the FDA has given full approval to a single drug, the antiviral remdesivir, for hospitalized patients. Dexamethasone or similar steroids are recommended for certain seriously ill patients based on federal treatment guidelines.
Charles Krupa / AP
Two women, wearing protective masks due to the Covid-19 virus outbreak, cast their votes at a polling station in Windham, NH High School.
The government continues to sponsor many studies testing other treatments alone and in combination with remdesivir.
But treatment development could suffer if Trump follows through on threats to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease physician, or other top health officials Trump has clashed with.
Most Americans support the mandatory wearing of masks in public and think preventing the spread of the virus is a higher priority than protecting the economy, according to the AP VoteCast, a national poll of more than 133,000 voters and non-voters conducted for The Associated. Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.
While several European countries have imposed or proposed new lockdowns and other restrictions to control escalating cases, Trump has resisted those approaches and focused on rebuilding the economy.
In the absence of a national strategy against the pandemic, slowing the spread of the virus in the U.S. will depend on more Americans taking the necessary precautions and the upcoming holiday season will make that a challenge, said Dr. Cedric Dark, physician emergency services in Houston.
“It’s going to be Thanksgiving, winter break for college students, Christmas and Hannukah,” but families may have to resist close gatherings this year, he said. Outbreaks on college campuses mean that many students can bring the virus home and pass it on to their parents and grandparents, he said.
Dark, who hasn’t seen his parents in over a year, has had to adjust his own vacation plans. This year, Thanksgiving will be in your parents’ garage, with the door up, chairs at least 6 feet (1.83 m) apart, and a space heater if needed.
“At least we can see each other, from a distance,” Dark said.
