U.S. braces for third wave of COVID-19

As the United States approaches the miserable mark of 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus, the pandemic is no longer focused on one or two epicentres.

Instead it is smouldering across all states, raising fears that when colder weather forces more people inside, it could surpass the surge seen in the summer.

The United States is losing on average over 800 people a day to the virus — compared with fewer than 15 a day on average in Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Although new cases are down about 50 per cent from the peak in July, the United States is still reporting on average nearly 40,000 new infections a day — the highest number in the developed world.

More than 30.98 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 958,453 have died, according to a Reuters tally. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

Cases are trending upwards in about 20 out of 50 states, including former epicentres like New Jersey and New York that had seen cases decline for months.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC News that he worries a third wave could be more diffused and spread across a broader section of the country.

“I do think that we're going to have a third act of this virus in the fall and the winter and it's likely to be more pervasive spread in a broader part of the country,” he said.

Gottlieb also said he doesn't believe there will be a vaccine available for general inoculation until the end of second quarter or the third-quarter in 2021, contradicting U.S. President Donald Trump's earlier comment that all Americans could get vaccinated by April.

“Hopefully this virus will start to dissipate in the summer” next year, Gottlieb said on CBS on Sunday, so that the timing of vaccine availability “isn't going to make that much of a difference because the virus won't be transferring as readily by then.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield has warned the U.S. is in for “the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we've ever had.”