US cases hit 100,000 per day for first time

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 US, 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 si ngle- 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 fortnight, according to the paper.

Prof Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of public health at Yale, wrote on Twitter yesterday: “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. Washing over us. 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.

Prof 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 >100% capacity. Healthcare 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.”

Donald Trump – who was briefly admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in October – has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak, insisting it will eventually “disappear”.

Joe Biden, his Democratic election rival, however, has sought to turn the vote into a referendum on Trump’s handling of the crisis, and vowed to listen to scientific recommendations on handling the pandemic if he was elected to the White House.