50,000 IN A DAY: U.S. VIRUS CASES HIT RECORD HIGH
‘A very disturbing week,’ Fauci says; Texas orders masks
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The number of confirmed coronavirus cases per day in the U.S. climbed to an all-time high of more than 50,000 on Thursday, with the infection curve rising in 40 of the 50 states in a reversal that has largely spared only the Northeast.
An alarming 36 states are seeing an increase in the percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus.
“What we’ve seen is a very disturbing week,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said in a livestream with the American Medical Association.
In a major retreat that illustrated how dire things have become in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the wearing of masks across most of the state after refusing until recently to let even local governments impose such rules.
The surge has been blamed in part on Americans not covering their faces or following other social distancing rules as states lifted their lockdowns over the last few weeks. Fauci warned that if people don’t start complying, “we’re going to be in some serious difficulty.”
The U.S. recorded 50,700 new confirmed cases, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. That represents a doubling of the daily total over the last month and is higher even than what the country witnessed during the most lethal phase of the crisis in April and May, when the New York area was easily the worst hot spot in the U.S.
All but 10 states are showing an upswing in newly reported cases over the last 14 days, according to data compiled by the volunteer COVID Tracking Project. The outbreaks are most severe in Arizona, Texas and Florida, which together with California have reclosed or otherwise clamped back down on bars, restaurants and movie theaters over the last week or so. Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed cases for the first time Thursday.
While some of the increases may be explained by expanded testing, other indicators are grim, too, including hospitalizations and positive test rates. Over the last two weeks, the percentage of positive tests has doubled in Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina and Ohio. In Nevada, it has tripled. In Idaho, it is five times higher.
Several Northeastern states have seen new infections slow down significantly, including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey, which allowed its Atlantic City casinos to reopen Thursday, though with no smoking, drinking or eating.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday seemed confident the virus would soon subside, telling Fox Business: “I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.”
The U.S. has reported at least 2.7 million cases and more than 128,000 dead.
Herman Cain in hospital
Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate in 2012, is being treated for the coronavirus at an Atlanta-area hospital, according to a statement posted on his Twitter account Thursday.
It’s not clear when or where Cain was infected, but he was hospitalized less than two weeks after attending President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He did not meet with Trump there, according to the campaign.
Cain, 74, was hospitalized after developing “serious” symptoms but is “awake and alert,” according to the statement.
The former pizza company executive was named by the Trump campaign as a co-chair of Black Voices for Trump.
“I realize people will speculate about the Tulsa rally, but Herman did a lot of traveling the past week, including to Arizona where cases are spiking,” Dan Calabrese, who has been editor of HermanCain.com, wrote on the website. “I don’t think there’s any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected. We’ll never know.”