USA TODAY International Edition
COVID- 19 spreading faster in US
Situation dire: New cases grow at pace not seen since June
Eighteen days from the presidential election, the USA has more confirmed COVID- 19 cases and deaths than any other country, and cases are growing at a speed not seen since the start of the summer peak.
At the current rate of growth, the nation could set a record for new cases in a single week within the first few days of November, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. If the spread of cases picks up momentum – as was seen in July – the USA could set a record in little more than a week.
“I don’t think it’s out of the question. Yesterday, we had about 50,000 new cases,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins. “It’s not crazy to think that we would get there sooner than we would all like.”
The USA added more than 366,400 cases in the past week – a number not seen since early August. That number was nearly 50,000 higher than the tally the previous week, a speed of growth not seen since late June.
“We’re going to have a huge increase
as we head into the colder months, and this could be potentially the worst part of the epidemic in the U. S., both in terms of new cases and even deaths,” said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. “Our lives will get better as we get vaccines early next year, but we’re going to go through a very troubled time.”
There are nearly 8 million confirmed cases of COVID- 19 in the USA and more than 217,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The pandemic has touched all but three counties, and the share of positive coronavirus tests is increasing in the Northwest, Midwest and other northern states. As of Tuesday evening, 14 states had set records for new cases in a week while four had a record number of deaths in a week.
“It’s from a relatively high watermark that we’re starting this third resurgence. We’re seeing hot spots all around the country, and that really concerns me because it makes it more difficult to control,” Rivers said.
Cases are surging across the Midwest at a blistering pace: North Dakota reported cases at a speed a third faster, on a per capita basis, than any U. S. state experienced in the worst of the spring or summer surges.
South Dakota and Montana are also ahead of the summer records, while Wisconsin is not far below, a data visualization of Johns Hopkins University by University of Illinois computer scientist Wade Fagen- Ulmschneider shows.
Epidemiologists are divided on whether the surge constitutes a second “wave” or merely a continuation of the first. New daily cases peaked in the spring in mid- April at a seven- day average of nearly 32,000 cases a day.
Cases began to decline after that but peaked again in mid- July, at an average of more than 67,000 new daily cases. Cases declined again and reached a low in mid- September at an average of more than 34,000 new daily cases.
Michael Osterholm, one of the nation’s leading epidemiologists and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the coronavirus outbreak is more like a wildfire than a “wave.”
“It will just keep burning human wood out there wherever it can find it. If you don’t put it out, those embers lie there, and if you remove your suppression activities, it comes right back. That’s what Europe is seeing right now,” he said. “If we let our foot off the brake completely, you’re going to see widespread transmission everywhere.”
The surge is fueled by three main factors, Osterholm said. People are returning to social activities because of pandemic fatigue. Young people back at school are spreading the virus to more vulnerable populations. And indoor transmission is increasing as cooler fall weather drives people inside.
Greg Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, warned of “a point when there’s no going back,” when the nation exceeds testing capability, any feasibility of contact tracing and the medical system’s ability to meet the surge demand.
The quality of health care will go down, and the mortality rate will rise, Poland said.
“This is a very bad premonition in what we’re seeing in the last week or two in the uptick in cases, and we would be fools to wait until it’s blatantly obvious,” Poland said.
It’s hard to predict when, exactly, the next peak will be, but several epidemiologists said models may provide an imperfect guide. At the current rate, new daily cases will peak at the end of December, and daily deaths will peak in mid- January, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Nationwide masking would cut the projected case peak in half, but easing mandates would double it, according to the model.
President Donald Trump continues to push for a vaccine by Election Day on Nov. 3, but experts said that timeline is unlikely. Doses of any Food and Drug Administration- authorized vaccine could be shipped by the end of the year or early 2021, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this week.
Mercedes Carnethon, vice chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, encouraged people to wear masks and maintain social distance into the fall and winter.
“We have to sustain this level of vigilance at this time, and it’s very hard over the holidays,” she said. “As I think about not seeing my family, it’s really hard. But that chance can be a real gamble – almost a Russian roulette.”