National Post (National Edition)
U.S. tops 100,000 cases in single day
Mortality rate has risen 21% in past two weeks
The United States reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, topping 100,000 for the first time.
There were 102,831 new infections and 1,097 COVID-19 deaths in just 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University case tracker.
In total in the U.S., more than 9.4 million people have been infected with the virus and 233,000 have died during the pandemic, by far the worst tolls in absolute terms globally.
The virus appears to be reaching a peak again as the country is caught up in choosing its new president.
Twenty-three states have recorded more cases in the past seven days than in any other week, according to The New York Times.
Five states — Colorado, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota and Nebraska — all set new single-day case records on Wednesday. The number of daily deaths is still considerably lower than in April, but has increased by 21 per cent in the last two weeks, according to the Times.
Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of public health at Yale, wrote on Twitter Thursday: “The count that worries me? Over 100,000 COVID-19 cases yesterday. Deaths up 21 per cent. There has been silence on this from the White House and the Dems. This is a tsunami ... Pay attention.”
Health officials in some states have already sounded warnings about their ability to handle an influx of hospital admissions as the winter flu season looms.
Eli Perencevich, an epidemiologist and doctor at the University of Iowa, posted: “Hospitals are full. Don't look at `beds' available on websites. Hospitals are already running at capacity. Health care workers are burning out. If all we needed were beds, we could just put people into hotels.”
He called for a “mask mandate” across the country to protect the system before it was too late, adding: “People are dying, hospitals are collapsing ... We can survive with good leadership.”
For many people, COVID-19 disease is not as daunting as the prospect of being unable to pay their bills or send their children to school.
“I got news for you, pal. COVID-19 is over. It's done,” said Nick Arnone, owner of HLSM, a software company for the power sports industry, in Plains, Pa. “We have therapeutics, so deaths are way down; we are very close to a vaccine. We've got to ride it out now.
“But if we don't have a strong economy, there is no way we can do anything. Trump is correct. Without a good economy, there is no way to dig our way out of this.”
About 35 per cent of voters said the economy was the most important issue for them, while about 17 per cent cited the pandemic and roughly two in 10 were motivated most by racial inequality.
At the same time, however, just over half the voters said it is more important to contain the virus, even if that hurts the economy, while slightly more than four in 10 said rebuilding the economy is most critical, even if that impairs work to quell the virus.