Category Archives: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC)

Top Trump adviser bluntly contradicts president on covid-19 threat, urging all-out response

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/02/deborah-birx-covid-trump/

“This is not about lockdowns. … It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented,” says internal White House report that challenges many of Trump’s pronouncements.

A top White House coronavirus adviser sounded alarms Monday about a new and deadly phase in the health crisis, pleading with top administration officials for “much more aggressive action,” even as President Trump continues to assure rallygoers that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic.

“We are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic … leading to increasing mortality,” said the Nov. 2 report from Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. “This is not about lockdowns — it hasn’t been about lockdowns since March or April. It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented.”

Birx’s internal report, shared with top White House and agency officials, contradicts Trump on numerous points: While the president holds large campaign events with hundreds of attendees, most without masks, she explicitly warns against them. While the president blames rising cases on more testing, she says testing is “flat or declining” in many areas where cases are rising. And while Trump says the country is “rounding the turn,” Birx notes that the country is entering its most dangerous period yet and will see more than 100,000 new cases a day this week.

Through a spokesperson, Birx did not respond to a request for comment.

Other health experts, including Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have warned of record surges in cases and hospitalizations as the United States records more than 9 million cases and 230,000 deaths.

“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt,” Fauci told The Washington Post late Friday, predicting a long and potentially deadly winter unless there’s an “abrupt change” — prompting Trump to suggest that he planned to fire the scientist after the election.

But Birx’s daily missives go further, revealing how much the administration’s internal reports are in direct conflict with Trump’s public pronouncements that downplay the seriousness of the threat and erroneously suggest that few people are dying. They also speak to the increasing desperation of health officials to spotlight the risks of a pandemic that is forecast to take thousands more lives as the weather worsens unless people change their behaviors. Some officials are also concerned about recouping their reputations in a post-Trump era.

The increasingly dire tone of Birx’s reports has gotten little traction, according to an administration official who works with her and spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive information. “She feels like she’s being ignored,” the official said.

Birx’s message “has been urgent for weeks,” said another administration official, “as has the plea for the administration to ask the American people to use masks, avoid gatherings and socially distance, basically since it became apparent that we were heading into a third surge.”

The report hits hard on the worsening situation: “Cases are rapidly rising in nearly 30 percent of all USA counties, the highest number of county hotspots we have seen with this pandemic,” it said. “Half of the United States is in the red or orange zone for cases despite flat or declining testing.”

Sounding a similar theme to past reports, it calls for “much more aggressive action from messaging, to testing, to surging personnel around the country before the crisis point.”

What is “essential at this time point,” the report said, is “consistent messaging about uniform use of masks, physical distancing and hand washing with profound limitation on indoor gatherings especially with family and friends.”

It adds: “This is about empowerment Americans with the knowledge and data for decision-making to prevent community spread and save lives.”

The president appears unpersuaded by such messages, convinced by new medical adviser Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no infectious-disease experience, that allowing healthy people to return to daily activities without restrictions will hasten herd immunity and bolster the economy, say some advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Trump plans to hold a large indoor gathering for 300 to 400 guests at the White House on Tuesday to watch the election returns, only a few weeks after a White House event to announce his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett became a superspreader event.

White House communications director Alyssa Farah disputed the report’s suggestion that the administration’s response has been inadequate to the crisis. She said the White House has “significantly increased” the U.S. national stockpile to ensure the country has sufficient personal protective equipment; bought 150 million coronavirus tests and distributed them to the most vulnerable populations, including nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and Native American tribal areas; and sent special teams to states and nursing homes with the most cases.

In addition, she said, the administration continues to work to “safely rush therapeutics” to the sick and develop vaccines. “We are working around-the-clock to safely treat the virus and ultimately defeat it,” Farah said.

Birx’s report goes to pains to dispute Trump’s false claims that coronavirus cases are increasing only because of increases in testing. Monday’s report notes that although testing is flat, a rising number of tests are positive, suggesting “community spread is much worse than is evident by current [measurements].”

An earlier, Oct. 17 report sounded the same theme: It cited increasing daily hospital admissions, rising fatalities and emergency room visits, and bluntly stated, “this is not due to increased testing but broad and ever-increasing community spread.”

That report added these words highlighted in bold: “There is an absolute necessity of the Administration to use this moment to ask the American people to wear masks, physical distance and avoid gatherings in both public and private spaces.” On that day, Trump held two large rallies, according to his public schedule, one in Michigan and one in Wisconsin.

Birx’s report goes to pains to dispute Trump’s false claims that coronavirus cases are increasing only because of increases in testing. Monday’s report notes that although testing is flat, a rising number of tests are positive, suggesting “community spread is much worse than is evident by current [measurements].”

An earlier, Oct. 17 report sounded the same theme: It cited increasing daily hospital admissions, rising fatalities and emergency room visits, and bluntly stated, “this is not due to increased testing but broad and ever-increasing community spread.”

That report added these words highlighted in bold: “There is an absolute necessity of the Administration to use this moment to ask the American people to wear masks, physical distance and avoid gatherings in both public and private spaces.” On that day, Trump held two large rallies, according to his public schedule, one in Michigan and one in Wisconsin.

Officials describe Birx as frustrated with Atlas’s growing influence. She has challenged his views in task force meetings, suggesting that reopening society without any restrictions would lead to thousands of deaths.

In recent weeks, Birx has crisscrossed the country, traveling to dozens of virus hot spots, where she has urged state and local officials to mandate masks, close bars and restaurants and encourage distancing.

Birx is said to be close to Vice President Pence, but he’s been on the road campaigning in recent weeks, taking his attention away from the coronavirus, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

Unlike Fauci, a highly regarded civil servant who Trump has criticized as a “Democrat,” Birx was chosen by the administration to helm the response and has been lavishly praised in the past by Trump.

Fauci said in his interview Friday that he and Birx lost the president’s ear as Trump worried increasingly about a sputtering economy and his reelection prospects.

“They needed to have a medical message that was essentially consistent with what they were saying, and one of the ways to say: ‘The outbreak is over. [Mitigation strategies are] really irrelevant because it doesn’t make any difference. All you need to do is prevent people from dying and protect people in places like the nursing homes,’ ” Fauci said.

Cartoon – Science vs. Defiance

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Protective gear - ND Cartoons

The virus doesn’t care about November 3rd

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Election, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Trust, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Transparency, Trust, Truth, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured, Vaccine • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/2480e0d1f164/the-weekly-gist-october-30-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

8 Big Reasons Election Day 2020 Could Be a Disaster - POLITICO

As the “third wave” of coronavirus continued to gain steam across the US this week, the nation passed another grim milestone, with more than 9M Americans now having tested positive for the virus, and the seven-day average number of new cases hitting a pandemic record of almost 72,000 new diagnoses daily. In states that we’ll surely be discussing a lot in the next week, cases were up 33 percent in Pennsylvania, 25 percent in Michigan, 23 percent in Wisconsin, 21 percent in Florida, and 16 percent in Arizona.

In a sign that the magnitude of case growth is not just an artifact of more testing, hospitalizations for COVID have risen 46 percent since the beginning of October, and are up 12 percent just this week. Nevertheless, as part of its “closing argument” to voters, the Trump administration this week touted “ending the COVID-19 pandemic” as one of its signature first-term accomplishments, although new polling data from Axios/Ipsos show that 62 percent of Americans believe the federal government is making the recovery worse, and 46 percent say the response has gotten worse since the first surge of cases in March and April.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the talismanic director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNBC this week that “if things do not change, if they continue on the course we’re on, there’s gonna be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases, and hospitalizations, and deaths.”
 
In separate remarks, Fauci pulled back from earlier predictions for the timing of a safe and effective vaccine against the coronavirus. In comments made Thursday, he said he now expects a vaccine to be available to those in high-priority groups “by the end of December or the beginning of January.” 

The CEO of drug maker Pfizer, which is among the furthest along in vaccine development, urged patience as its Phase 3 trial nears full enrollment, and researchers prepare to review and submit safety data to the Food and Drug Administration. He again assured investors that the vaccine timeline would remain apolitical, stating “This is not going to be a Republican vaccine or a Democratic vaccine. It would be a vaccine for citizens of the world.” AstraZeneca, also ahead in development of a coronavirus vaccine, reported promising results regarding immune responses among participants in its clinical trials, being conducted jointly with Oxford University.

With the Presidential election just a few days away, it remains clear that neither the virus nor the scientific community’s efforts to combat it are conforming to the best-laid plans of political leaders.

The outcome of the looming political battle, however, will surely determine the context in which the larger fight against this pandemic takes place. Again, please vote—it’s a matter of life and death.

The norms around science and politics are cracking

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Accountability, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Data Consistency, Data Control, Data Governance, Data Integrity, Data Interpretation, Data Transparency, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Executive Orders, Expert, Expert Opinion, Health Policy, Norm, Oversight, Politics, Public Control, Public Discourse, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Trust, Rule of Law, Scientists, Silencing, Silencing Speech, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/science-politics-norms-cracking-f67bcff2-b399-44f4-8827-085573f5ae52.html

Illustration of a hand holding a cracked microscope slide containing the U.S. flag.

Crafting successful public health measures depends on the ability of top scientists to gather data and report their findings unrestricted to policymakers.

State of play: But concern has spiked among health experts and physicians over what they see as an assault on key science protections, particularly during a raging pandemic. And a move last week by President Trump, via an executive order, is triggering even more worries.

What’s happening: If implemented, the order creates a “Schedule F” class of federal employees who are policymakers from certain agencies who would no longer have protection against being easily fired— and would likely include some veteran civil service scientists who offer key guidance to Congress and the White House.

  • Those agencies might handle the order differently, and it is unclear how many positions could fall under Schedule F — but some say possibly thousands.
  • “This much-needed reform will increase accountability in essential policymaking positions within the government,” OMB director Russ Vought tells Axios in a statement.

What they’re saying: Several medical associations, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, strongly condemned the action, and Democrats on the House oversight panel demanded the administration “immediately cease” implementation.

  • “If you take how it’s written at face value, it has the potential to turn every government employee into a political appointee, who can be hired and fired at the whim of a political appointee or even the president,” says University of Colorado Boulder’s Roger Pielke Jr.
  • Protections for members of civil service allow them to argue for evidence-based decision-making and enable them to provide the best advice, says CRDF Global’s Julie Fischer, adding that “federal decision-makers really need access to that expertise — quickly and ideally in house.”

Between the lines: Politics plays some role in science, via funding, policymaking and national security issues.

  • The public health system is a mix of agency leaders who are political appointees, like HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and career civil servants not dependent on the president’s approval, like NIAID director Anthony Fauci.
  • “Public health is inherently political because it has to do with controlling the way human beings move around,” says University of Pennsylvania’s Jonathan Moreno.

Yes, but: The norm is to have a robust discussion — and what has been happening under the Trump administration is not the norm, some say.

  • “Schedule F is just remarkable,” Pielke says. “It’s not like political appointees editing a report, [who are] working within the system to kind of subvert the system. This is an effort to completely redefine the system.”
  • The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Stephen Morrison says that the administration has been defying normative practices, including statements denigrating scientists, the CDC and FDA.

The big picture: Public trust in scientists,which tends to be high, is taking a hit, not only due to messaging from the administration but also from public confusion over changes in guidance, which vacillated over masks and other suggestions.

  • Public health institutions “need to have the trust of the American people. In order to have the trust of the American people, they can’t have their autonomy and their credibility compromised, and they have to have a voice,” Morrison says.
  • “If you deny CDC the ability to have briefings for the public, and you take away control over authoring their guidance, and you attack them and discredit them so public perceptions of them are negative, you are taking them out of the game and leaving the stage completely open for falsehoods,” he adds.
  • “All scientists don’t agree on all the evidence, every time. But what we do agree on is that there’s a process. We look at what we know, we decide what we can clearly recommend based on what we know, sometimes when we learn more, we change our recommendations, and that’s the scientific process,” Fischer says.

What’s next: The scientific community is going to need to be proactive on rebuilding public trust in how the scientific process works and being clear when guidance changes and why it has changed, Fischer says.

Fauci: The US is still in the first wave of COVID-19

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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fauci-the-us-is-still-in-the-first-wave-160137351.html

The U.S. is well into its third peak of the coronavirus, marking a new record for daily cases at more than 83,000 over the weekend.

The total case count has surpassed 8.6 million and the death toll rose above 225,000. Globally, more than 43 million have been affected with more than 1.1 million dead.

In recent days, some experts and reports have referred to this as a third wave, while others refer to it as either an elongated first wave or a second wave.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, settled the debate with Yahoo Finance this Monday at its annual All Markets Summit.

“I look at it more as an elongated — and an exacerbation of — the original first wave,” Fauci said.

He explained that while the Northeast has been able to reduce its outbreak, the national baseline never fell to a more manageable number like 10,000 cases per day. Instead it’s stayed high at about 20,000 cases per day.

In addition, for areas which chose to open up after the initial brief national lockdown, some states did not follow strict guidelines.

“We started to see a peak that brought us up to around 70,000 per day,” Fauci said, adding that, “Now as we’re getting into the cold weather, we came back up again to the worst that we’ve ever had, which was over 80,000 per day.”

We’ve never really had waves in the sense of up and then down to a good baseline. It’s been wavering up and down. So now, we’re at the highest baseline. … [It’s] kind of semantics. You want to call it the third wave or extended first wave. No matter how you look at it, it’s not good news,” he added.

A similar debate ensued in the summer, with many pointing to the surge hitting parts of the country that had yet been unaffected, thereby making it the first wave. Some experts say they are used interchangeably, and others say the differentiation is actually only between the local and national levels.

Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician at Tufts Medical Center echoed Fauci’s declaration of an elongated first wave.

“Only when looking back at the shape of a curve can you truly call something a peak or wave. It’s also important to mention that the overall U.S. graph looks very different than individual state graphs,” Doron said.

“The U.S. as a whole, however, never declined to low levels after its first peak, which is why some people say we are still in the ‘first wave,’” she said.

“Overall, I think it’s more a matter of semantics than something scientific.”

Cartoon – Greatest Threat to America?

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Editorial Cartoons for Wednesday from Times Wire Services

Heading into a “third wave” of the pandemic

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Asymptomatic Transmission, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Clinical Trials, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Coronavirus Treatment, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Election, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, False Hope, False Narrative, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Trust, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/f2794551febb/the-weekly-gist-october-23-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

The US broke its record for the highest number of new coronavirus cases in a day - Vox

In Thursday’s second and final Presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden warned that a “dark winter” lies ahead in the coronavirus pandemic, and with cases, hospitalizations, and deaths on the rise across the country, it now appears that we are headed into a “third wave” of infections that may prove worse than both the initial onset of COVID on the coasts and the summertime spike in the Sun Belt.

Yesterday more than 71,600 new cases were reported nationwide, nearing a late-July record. Thirteen states hit record-high hospitalizations this week, measured by weekly averages, most in the Midwest and Mountain West. Several Northeastern states, which had previously brought the spread of the virus under control, also experienced substantial increases in infections, leading schools in Boston to suspend all in-person instruction. Of particular concern is hospital capacity, which is already being strained in the more rural areas now being hit by COVID cases. With infection spikes more geographically widespread than in earlier waves, fewer medical workers are available to lend support to hospitals in other states, leading to concerns about hospital staffing as admissions rise.
 
As hospitalizations increase, so too will demand for therapeutics to help shorten the course and moderate the impact of COVID. This week, Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir, previously available under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the federal government, became the first drug to win full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The approval was based on clinical studies that showed that remdesivir can reduce recovery time, and also includes use for pediatric COVID patients under the age of 11.

Meanwhile, the FDA cleared AstraZeneca to resume US clinical trials of its coronavirus vaccine, which had been suspended for a month following an adverse patient event. It’s widely expected that one or more drug companies will submit their vaccine candidates for EUA sometime next month, although new polling data released this week indicates that the American public is growing more skeptical in their willingness to take an early vaccine against the virus, with only 58 percent of respondents saying they would get the shot when it first becomes available, down from 69 percent in August. (Only 43 percent of Black respondents say they would get the vaccine, compared to 59 percent of Whites—a racial divide that reveals deep distrust based on the history of inequities in the US healthcare system.) 

A long, dark winter': Experts worry about mental health in first full COVID winter - NEWS 1130

In many respects, the coming month will surely prove to be a pandemic turning point, revealing the magnitude of the next wave of COVID, the direction of US public health policy, the prospects for reliable therapeutics, and the timing of a safe and effective vaccine. We’ll soon know whether we are, indeed, headed for a winter of darkness.

The COVID Tracking Project

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https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-daily-positive

The public deserves the most complete data available about COVID-19 in the US. No official source is providing it, so we are.

Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.

https://covidtracking.com/

Targeted lockdowns are the new way to control the coronavirus

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https://www.axios.com/targeted-coronavirus-lockdowns-new-york-city-88c0a1a0-5e00-4694-8027-3289d3f11539.html

As a new wave of coronavirus cases hits the U.S. and Europe, governments are shifting away from total shutdowns toward more geographically targeted lockdowns to stifle the virus’ spread.

Why it matters: Precision shutdowns can slow emerging outbreaks while lessening the overall economic impact of the response. But they risk a backlash from those who are targeted, and may not be strong enough to keep a highly contagious virus under control.

Driving the news: New York City tried to control a flare-up of new coronavirus cases this month by instituting partial shutdowns on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, curtailing economic and social activity in areas harder hit by the virus while continuing reopening elsewhere.

  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday instituted a similar response for the U.K., putting in place a three-tier escalating system of lockdowns on a city or regional basis.
  • “We don’t want to go back to another national lockdown,” Johnson told the British Parliament. But “we can’t let the virus rip.”

What’s new: Some early research indicates more-targeted lockdowns can effectively smother outbreaks while leaving broader city and regional economies mostly intact.

  • A paper published by a team of economists in July found a more precise shutdown focused on places where viral spread was most common could have reduced economic losses in New York by as much as 50% compared to a uniform lockdown.
  • As long as new outbreaks are still in the relatively low flare-up stage, targeted lockdowns can efficiently cut off the oxygen to new spread. That seems to be the case in New York, where data released on Thursday indicates transmission has slowed in six of the ZIP codes that had been the focus of targeted lockdowns.

Yes, but: Individuals move around a city, and some epidemiologists worry that over time cases will break out of targeted lockdown areas and spark a wider outbreak.

  • A preprint paper published in August found people were willing to travel outside of lockdown areas to get services they needed, potentially spreading the virus along the way.
  • That was especially true for religious services. The paper found that during March, even as the total number of visits to churches declined, between 10% and 30% of churches nationwide saw increases in attendance. Those who were motivated to go simply went to churches outside of restricted areas.
  • The small, seemingly geographically isolated outbreaks officials are focusing on may actually be the first signs that a city or region’s control measures simply aren’t working. As a result, “targeted measures can end up chasing the outbreak wider and wider, to the point where restrictions are equivalent to a broader blanket policy,” epidemiologist Adam Kucharski told Wired.

What to watch: A targeted lockdown is inevitably going to appear to single out specific groups of people, which risks creating a backlash that can undermine public support for long-term control measures.

  • That’s already been the case in New York, where Orthodox Jewish communities have taken to the street to protest targeted lockdowns in their neighborhoods.
  • In New York’s Queens borough, stores and restaurants in one mall have been ordered closed, while those in an adjacent mall are still open, simply because of which side of the line they fall on.
  • The experience of COVID-19 has already been a deeply unfair one, with both the direct health effects and indirect economic costs falling on those who can least afford it, and focused lockdowns will exacerbate that unfairness.

The bottom line: Targeted lockdowns can throttle the virus while minimizing economic damage, at least in the short term. But one thing we’ve learned is that if COVID-19 gets out of control in one place, it may be only a matter of time before it ends up everywhere else.

U.S. Covid Hospitalizations Reach 7-Week High As Cases Surge In Midwest

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Asymptomatic Transmission, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Intensive Care (ICU), Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Opinion, Public Perception, Public Safety, Public Trust, Quarantine, Scientists, Social Distancing, Ventilators • Leave a comment
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2020/10/15/us-covid-hospitalizations-reach-7-week-high-as-cases-surge-in-midwest/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=coronavirus&cdlcid=5d2c97df953109375e4d8b68#19eb7e37fa61

TOPLINE

More Americans are now in the hospital with Covid-19 than at any other point since late August, causing some states to nearly run out of hospital beds, as coronavirus infections continue to increase nationwide ahead of a potential end-of-year surge.

KEY FACTS

Some 37,048 coronavirus patients were hospitalized as of Wednesday, the highest level in almost two months according to new data from the COVID Tracking Project, though total hospitalizations are still below their mid-April peak of almost 60,000.

Among hospitalized patients, 7,156 were in ICUs and 1,776 are currently on ventilators — both of those numbers have increased slightly in recent weeks.

Texas leads the nation with more than 4,000 patients in hospitals, followed by California and Florida, though all three states’ hospital counts declined since the summer.

Hospitalizations and new cases soared in Wisconsin over the last month, and officials opened an emergency field hospital near Milwaukee this week as medical centers across the state fear they will run out of space.

Hospital numbers are also on the rise across other parts of the Midwest and South: Missouri reported a new record this week, and levels in Kentucky and Ohio are both within striking distance of their summertime peaks.

BIG NUMBER

217,933. That’s the total number of Americans who have died from Covid-19, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. Daily fatalities are still below their peak in April, but they remain steady at more than 700 per day.

KEY BACKGROUND

When the coronavirus first surged in the New York City area, some hospitals nearly buckled under the pressure, contending with thousands of sick patients and inadequate protective equipment. Covid-19 cases gradually decreased nationwide but never fully subsided. The West Coast and Deep South dealt with cascading upticks after states loosened coronavirus restrictions during the summer, and the Midwest and small states like South Dakota are now struggling to open up more hospital capacity as new infections surge. Some experts warn cases could spike yet again over the fall and winter, straining the nation’s medical system and making it tough to get sick patients the medical attention they need.

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“When we see an overwhelming number of patients get infected, a lot of them are going to need hospitalization and support,” Dara Kass, a New York-based emergency room physician, told CBS News on Thursday. “We’re seeing hospitals in Wisconsin be overwhelmed with no ICU beds … This is a big concern of those of us who are looking to prevent as many deaths as possible.”