Rules return as U.S. cases grow at record pace
Biggest virus surges in Midwest, Great Plains
Coronavirus cases spread with renewed speed in the United States on Thursday, forcing many places to reimpose tough restrictions eased just months ago.
New cases per day are on the rise in 44 states, with many of the biggest surges in the Midwest and Great Plains, where resistance to masks and other precautions has been running high and the virus has often been seen as just a big-city problem.
Deaths per day are climbing in 30 states.
“I see this as one of the toughest times in the epidemic,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. “The numbers are going up pretty rapidly. We’re going to see a pretty large epidemic across the Northern Hemisphere.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert, said Americans should think hard about whether to hold Thanksgiving gatherings.
“Everyone has this traditional, emotional, warm feeling about the holidays and bringing a group of people, friends and family, together in the house indoors,” he said on ABC’S “Good Morning America.”
“We really have to be careful this
time that each individual family evaluates the risk-benefit of doing that.”
New cases in the U.S. have risen over the past two weeks from about 40,000 per day on average to more than 52,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. Cases peaked in the U.S. over the summer at nearly 70,000 a day.
Deaths were relatively stable over the past two weeks, at around 720 a day. That is well below the U.S. peak of over 2,200 dead per day in late April.
So far in the new surges, deaths have not increased at the same pace as infections.
In other developments:
■ Three Rockland County Jewish congregations are suing New York state and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, saying he engaged in a “streak of anti-semitic discrimination” with a recent crackdown on religious gatherings to reduce the state’s coronavirus infection rate. The Manhattan federal court lawsuit accused the Democrat of making negative, false, and discriminatory statements about the Jewish Orthodox community as he imposed new coronavirus measures to counter the state’s rising infection rate in so-called red zone areas.
■ Former New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie said Thursday that he was wrong not to wear a mask at the White House, after he and President Donald Trump both came down with the coronavirus. Christie, in a statement, said he has recovered from COVID-19 after a weeklong stay in a hospital’s intensive care unit.
■ Tighter virus restrictions are coming for the El Paso area in an effort to shrink the “unprecedented number” of newly reported COVID-19 cases, local officials said Thursday, making it the first major county in Texas to scale back since Gov. Greg Abbott loosened rules in September.
■ Schools should maintain options for parents whether they prefer in-person or online instruction for their children, Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday as the state sees an uptick in newly confirmed virus cases. “We want to provide those options to our kids and families,” Ducey said after touring a Phoenix charter school with U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos. “We think options are very important.”
■ Election officials said nearly a quarter of the workers in a warehouse where election supplies are kept and voting equipment is readied for Georgia’s most populous county have tested positive for the coronavirus. But Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron said Thursday that the positive COVID-19 tests for 13 of the 60 workers at the county election preparation center shouldn’t delay election operations.