U.S. continues to set new high records of COVID-19 cases

by Zaid Aleem

The upward trajectory of coronavirus cases in the U.S. for the past few weeks continued Wednesday with the country setting a new mark with more than 136,000 new infections, according to Johns Hopkins University data. This development comes a day after the U.S. reached 1 million cases in November alone and COVID-19 hospitalizations surpassed 60,000 for the first time, USA today reported.

Hospitalizations have more than doubled in less than two months, John Hopkins University data reported Wednesday. The number of Americans hospitalized due to COVID-19 has risen almost 50% in the last two weeks. As of today, the U.S. surpassed 247,000 deaths caused by the coronavirus, the largest number in the world. While the U.S. has less than 5% of the global population, it has roughly about 19% of the reported coronavirus deaths.

The seven-day moving average also set a grim record this week for the U.S. with more than 500,000 infections. With this, an American is testing positive every 1.2 seconds. Daily deaths are also climbing – one of us is dying every 107 seconds, data from Johns Hopkins found.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it: We are facing an urgent crisis, and there is an imminent risk to you, your family members, your friends, your neighbors and the people you care about,” Wisconsin’s Gov. Tony Evers told USA Today.

His state is currently seeing one of the nation’s worst outbreaks.

As winter approaches, America is facing a crucial fork in the road, Melissa Nolan noted, an infectious disease expert and professor at the University of South Carolina

Several states now are tightening their lockdowns in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus as winter approaches. With cases averaging over a 100,000 per day for the past few days now, we are in the middle of a crisis. The pandemic has worsened from its initial state with no signs of control. Some suggest a national lockdown might allow a “reset” for states more severely affected to reduce their spiraling numbers, but that is unlikely to happen given the political climate, most experts believe.