As states end lockdowns and shift their focus to reopening for business, more hospitals are seeing patients come to emergency rooms displaying symptoms of Covid-19. Officials at the Harvard Global Health Institute worry that as the country reported more than two million coronavirus cases this week, deaths from the virus could double current numbers by early fall.
Since Memorial Day, the number of coronavirus hospitalizations has spiked in at least a dozen states. Those states include Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. A downward trend in coronavirus cases was reported in 22 states while nine states are holding steady.
“I understand people are willing to live alongside this virus. It means that between 800 and 1,000 Americans are going to die every single day. We’re going to get another 100,000 deaths by September … we really do have to try to figure out how to bring the caseloads down from these scary levels, in some states,” Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said in an interview on CNN.
MORE ON THE PANDEMIC
Ohio Republican Senator Stephen Huffman explains himself after asking a racist question about coronavirus rates among African Americans.
During a hearing on a proposal to declare racism a public health crisis in the state, Huffman, who is also a doctor, said, “I understand African Americans have a higher incidence of chronic conditions and that makes them more susceptible to death from Covid. But why does it not make them more susceptible just to get Covid? Could it just be that African Americans or the colored population do not wash their hands as well as other groups? Or wear a mask? Or do not socially distance themselves? Could that be the explanation for why the higher incidence?”
In response to Covid-19-related jitters in the stock market, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Thursday that the U.S. economy will not be shut down again, even as cases continue to rise and estimates predict a sharp increase this fall. He added that over the next month, more than $1 trillion will be injected into the economy, mainly to help industries such as hotels, travel, entertainment and restaurants.
A young woman in her 20s, who spent six weeks on a ventilator after her lungs were damaged while battling Covid-19, has successfully received a double lung transplant. Surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago who performed the operation are hopeful that patients with extensive lung damage from coronavirus infection can survive.
A rising number of fruit and vegetable farm and packing house workers infected with coronavirus follows reports of thousands of meat plant employees contracting the virus. This new round of infections could lead to more labor shortages and a new wave of disruption to U.S. food production.
The Trump administration said last month it may extend an executive order to keep meat plants operating to fruit and vegetable producers as well, hinting at a concern that fresh produce could be the next sector hit.
Senate Democrats are calling on the Trump administration to reinstate the White House pandemic unit as a separate office, saying that dismantling it after Obama left office slowed the U.S. response to the coronavirus outbreak.
In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer requested a briefing next week from top administration public health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Brix, on record-breaking coronavirus spikes in states nationwide.
