850,000 victims
As of Tuesday, there were more than 25.3 million confirmed cases and over 850,000 deaths worldwide, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S. accounting for more than 6 million infections and 183,000 of the dead.
About 68,000 of the U.S. deaths have come since the start of summer, with the number of infections among Americans nearly tripling in the same period.
“It’s been a summer of fire, not ice,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectiousdisease expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “If anything, we’ve learned that this virus is even nastier than we thought it was in the spring.”
Texas amassed more than 10,000 virus deaths in July and August, Florida added over 7,600, and California recorded nearly 7,000. The Sun Belt also includes Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
States across the region began to make progress against the virus after suspending or rolling back business reopenings and taking a harder line on mask-wearing and social distancing.
The Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer, brings a return to school, college and sports.
“We’ll be struggling with COVID. I don’t know whether it will surge in the winter, but it certainly will stick around,” Schaffner said.
Health experts pinned some of the blame for the summertime surge on Memorial Day and Fourth of July gatherings, and they worry that Labor Day will contribute to the virus’s spread.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and the state’s epidemiologist, Dr. Paul Byers, held a news conference Monday in which they implored people to avoid big Labor Day parties.
“I think all we are is just a moment away from us all forgetting and getting tired of doing the things that have gotten us this far,” Byers said.