VIRUS CASES CONTINUE RISING, THREATEN TO OVERWHELM HOSPITALS

Health officials issue warnings amid new daily high of 228K

Coronavirus infections across the U.S. continue to rise as the country moves deeper into the holiday season, when eagerly anticipated gatherings of family and friends could push the numbers even higher and overwhelm hospitals.

A new daily high of nearly 228,000 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases was reported nationwide Friday, eclipsing the previous high mark of 217,000 cases set the day before, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The seven-day rolling average of deaths attributable to COVID-19 in the U.S. passed 2,000 for the first time since spring, rising to 2,011. Two weeks ago, the sevenday average was 1,448. There were 2,607 deaths reported in the U.S. on Friday.

Johns Hopkins had previously reported Wednesday daily COVID-19 deaths at 3,157. That was later updated to 2,804 because of a change in numbers from Nevada, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

Arizona’s top public health official took on a blunt tone as she reported the state’s latest case numbers, a near-record of nearly 6,800 new infections, telling people to wear masks around anyone outside their household, “even those you know and trust.”

“We must act as though anyone we are around may be infected,” Dr. Cara Christ, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, wrote on Twitter. Arizona’s intensive-care units are experiencing caseloads not seen since the summer, when the state had one of the worst outbreaks in the world. Just 8 percent of ICU beds and 10 percent of all inpatient beds were unoccupied Friday, according to state data.

Hospital officials issued bleak warnings about the potential for severe overcrowding, fearing that Thanksgiving gatherings seeded new outbreaks that are not yet showing in daily case counts. It takes several days after someone is exposed to develop symptoms, and several more to get test results. Eventually, more severe cases will require hospitalization.

In St. Louis, two children’s hospitals opened their doors to adult patients without COVID-19 as medical centers in the region fill up, according to the St. Louis Post-dispatch. Mayor Lyda Krewson said the city has reopened a temporary morgue. Area hospitals are at about 82 percent capacity for in-patient beds and 81 percent capacity for ICU beds.

In Idaho, the National Guard helped direct people and traffic at a Boise urgent care and family practice clinic converted to a facility for people with coronavirus symptoms. Health officials say Idaho’s attempt to hold the coronavirus in check is failing.

Just over 1,000 people have died from COVID-19 so far, about four to five times the number of annual deaths from flu and pneumonia. Confirmed infections have surpassed 100,000.

Elective surgeries mostly have been halted to conserve bed space and staff. COVID-19 patients have been sent home with monitoring devices to care for themselves. After Thanksgiving gatherings, officials fear a surge of infections that could force difficult choices about what to do with patients when there’s no more room or anyone available to treat them.

“When would we reach absolute capacity? I just don’t know. But we’re nervous,” said Barton Hill, vice president of St. Luke’s Health System, which has hospitals in southwestern and central Idaho.

Hospitals are struggling not only with the increase in patients but with their own staff as health workers contract COVID-19 themselves or quit under the pressure of caring for so many infectious patients.

“We continue to be concerned about the potential implications of the travel we have seen in the past week with Thanksgiving, as well as social gathering related to the holidays,” said Dr. Adnan Munkarah, executive vice president and chief clinical officer for Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

The health system currently has 576 employees out because they have tested positive, have pending tests or are quarantined because of close contact, up from 378 a week ago, Munkarah said.