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WASHINGTON: The White House coronavirus task force warned that much of the country is facing an “unrelenting” rise in COVID-19 cases, urging tough countermeasures, while at least nine states on Thursday (29 May October) reported record daily increases in new infections.
The worst-hit regions in the West and Midwest encompass a number of battle states that are expected to play a pivotal role in Tuesday’s US presidential election contest between incumbent Republican Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
“We are on a very difficult trajectory. We are going in the wrong direction,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of the task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said coronavirus cases were increasing in 47 states and patients were overwhelming hospitals across the country.
“If things don’t change, if they continue the way we are, there will be a lot of pain in this country regarding additional cases, hospitalizations and deaths,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday night. .
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The White House coronavirus task force has warned states in the central and western parts of the country that aggressive measures will be necessary to curb the spread of the virus, according to weekly state reports seen by CNN.
“We continue to see relentless broad community expansion in the Midwest, Upper Midwest and the West. This will require aggressive mitigation to control both silent and asymptomatic spread and symptomatic spread,” the one state report said.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of public health at Brown University, echoed the ominous assessment Thursday, telling Reuters that “things are very, very bad in the United States right now.”
“We’re having some of the biggest outbreaks we’ve had during the entire pandemic,” he said, adding that the initial waves of infections last spring were more localized. “And nine, 10 months after this pandemic, we are still largely unprepared.”
At least nine states – Indiana, Ohio, Maine, Minnesota, Illinois, North Dakota, North Carolina, Michigan and Oregon – reported record one-day increases in COVID-19 cases on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally.
Indiana also reported a record number of hospitalizations, which are skyrocketing across the country, a metric independent of the amount of testing being done.
As of Thursday, there were 45,457 COVID-19 patients in U.S. hospitals, the highest number since Aug. 14. Nearly 228,000 people have died from the respiratory virus in the United States since the outbreak began, the highest national number in the world, and 8.6 million in the US Infections have been documented to date.
VIRUS “RAGING”
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced the creation of “COVID advocacy teams” of community leaders to focus on measures to curb the spread.
“The virus is sweeping across the state and there is no place to hide,” DeWine said at a news conference as he urged residents to be more diligent in wearing masks, social distancing and hand washing.
Health experts believe the virus is on the rise due to more private social gatherings, colder temperatures driving people indoors, and Americans letting their guard down due to fatigue with COVID-19 restrictions.
Russell Vinik, medical director of Health Plans at the University of Utah, said the virus was spreading in his state primarily through small social gatherings.
As cases rise in Utah, Vinik said there was a great need for specialized medical professionals to handle the increase.
“We have adequate PPE (personal protective equipment), our big problem is humans, the people you need,” he said in an interview. “This is not about hospital beds. It is about trained and specialized providers to care for those patients.”
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As the pandemic threatens to extend into winter, with a vaccine still months away, Vinik said hospitals will likely become more tense.
Fauci noted that the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine could be available to some high-risk Americans in late December or early January, if all goes well.
Brown’s dean of public health said doctors have gotten better at treating COVID-19, which he said helps explain why death rates have improved a bit, “but we’re still starting to see that many hospitals start to fill up. “
Trump in the election campaign has repeatedly downplayed the virus, claiming for weeks that the country is “rounding the turn,” even as new cases and hospitalizations rise.
At a rally in Arizona on Thursday, the president again argued against taking stricter measures against a resurgence of the virus.
Biden and his fellow Democrats in Congress have criticized Trump for his handling of the health crisis.
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