US Covid19 task force: ‘pain’ ahead

WASHINGTON/LONDON: The White House coronavirus task force has warned that much of the country is in the grip of an ‘‘unrelenting’’ rise in Covid19 cases, urging tough countermeasures, as at least nine states yesterday reported record daily increases in new infections.

The hardesthit regions in the West and Midwest encompass a number of battleground states expected to play a pivotal role in Wednesday’s presidential election.

‘‘We are on a very difficult trajectory. We’re going in the wrong direction,’’ said Dr Anthony Fauci, a leading task force member and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci said coronavirus cases were on the rise in 47 states and patients were overwhelming hospitals across the country.

‘‘If things do not change, if they continue on the course we’re on, there’s gonna be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalisations, and deaths,’’ Fauci said.

The task force has warned states in the middle and western parts of the country that aggressive measures will be necessary to curb the virus’ spread, according to weekly state reports seen by CNN.

‘‘We continue to see unrelenting, broad community spread in the Midwest, Upper Midwest and West. This will require aggressive mitigation to control both the silent, asymptomatic spread and symptomatic spread,’’ one state’s report said.

The ominous assessment was echoed yesterday by Dr Ashish Jha, Brown University’s dean of public health, who told Reuters ‘‘things are very, very bad in the United States right now’’.

‘‘We are having some of the largest breakouts that we’ve had during the entire pandemic,’’ he said, adding that the initial waves of infections last spring were more localised.

‘‘And nine, 10 months into this pandemic, we are still largely not quite prepared.’’

At least nine states — Indiana, Ohio, Maine, Minnesota, Illinois, North Dakota, North Carolina, Michigan and Oregon — reported record oneday increases in cases yesterday, according to a Reuters tally.

Indiana also reported a record number of hospitalisations, which are soaring across the country — a metric independent of how much testing is being done.

As of yesterday, there were 45,457 Covid19 patients in US hospitals, the most since August 14. Nearly 228,000 people have died of the virus in the US since the outbreak began — the world’s highest national toll — and 8.6 million US infections have been documented to date.

Across the Atlantic, Britain continued to hold out against following Germany and France in ordering a second lockdown.

Although it has the largest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, it said it would stick with a system of local lockdowns, despite a new study that showed cases in England doubling every nine days.

‘‘The judgement of the government today is that a blanket national lockdown is not appropriate, would do more harm than good,’’ Housing Minister Robert Jenrick told Times Radio. — Reuters