Medics transport a patient on a stretcher of an ambulance outside Emergency at Coral Gables Hospital, where Coronavirus patients will be treated at Coral Gables near Miami, on July 30, 2020.
Chandan Khanna | AFP | Getty Images
The United States has surpassed 5 million Covid-19 cases, a horrific milestone that represents roughly a quarter of all infections worldwide since the coronavirus first originated in Wuhan, China a little over seven months ago.
It took just six weeks for the number of Covid-19 infections to double in the U.S., which recorded the last 2 million infections in the last two weeks, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The latest grim record comes as growth in new cases in the U.S. appears to be leveling at an average of 54,235 new infections per day in the past week, according to a CNBC analysis of Hopkins’ data. New cases peaked at 67,902 new cases on July 19, based on an average of seven days, after a recurrence of coronavirus cases ripped through the Sun Belt states in June and July.
California and Florida have both reported more than 500,000 total cases since the outbreak in the U.S. hit in January and Texas is approaching that number. Total cases for each state are now more than New York, which was once considered the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak earlier this year. However, these states have reported far fewer deaths than the Empire State, which has so far lost more than 32,000 people to the coronavirus, according to Hopkins.
Doctors say they could have had more lives compared to the peak in New York in March and April because they know more about the virus and have discovered better treatments, such as remdesivir. The recent rise in cases has also affected many more younger people, who also have higher survival rates.
U.S. health officials are worried that the virus could now spread widely in parts of the Midwest. White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci and coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx have raised concerns about states like Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana starting to tick up in their so-called positivity figures, as the percentage tests that are positive.
“Every country suffers. We, the United States, have suffered … as much or worse than one,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN and the Harvard School of Public Health on Wednesday.
“I mean, when you look at the number of infections and the number of deaths, it really matters a lot,” he said.
Fauci criticized the division made between public health measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and reopened the economy, saying it had become a debate between choosing one or the other.
He has suggested that some states “seriously” re-examine where they are in the process of reopening and determine whether they should pause or reverse some reopening.
“I do not think we should in the fall and winter think we will have a disaster,” Fauci said during a Q&A with the Brown University School of Public Health on Friday. “We could go into the fall and get the winter out. It looks good when we do certain things.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has continued to pressure states to reopen and reiterate his belief that lockdowns would cause more harm than good. He said the nation now needs to focus on keeping older Americans safe while sending people back to work and school.
“Lockdowns do not prevent infection in the future. They just do not. It comes back many times, it comes back,” Trump said in a press release Monday.
However, Trump said on Wednesday that there is “no question” that the virus will eventually “go away as things go.” The president’s remarks contradict his medical advisers and the World Health Organization, who have all warned that the virus could never be completely destroyed from the planet. The president also continued to press on schools to reopen this fall, saying he believes most of them will. When it comes to the coronavirus, he said children are able to “throw it away very easily.”
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