Washington
Topping over 127,000 cases, the United States has hit a third straight daily record for new coronavirus infections, John Hopkins University reported Friday.
And the death toll as of 8:30 pm (0130 GMT) over the past 24 hours was 1,149, the Baltimore-based university said.
The outbreak has been surging for weeks across the country, with the Midwest worst-hit even as the number of new diagnoses were approaching springtime levels in the south, northeast, and west.
While deaths remain far lower than the peak in spring, Friday was also the fourth day in a row that fatalities were above 1,000. The last time people were dying of COVID-19 at that rate in the US was early September.
As of Friday evening, the US – the worst-hit country in the world in terms of deaths and total cases – had more than 236,000 coronavirus-related fatalities and 9.7 million known infections.
Cases are expected to increase as the country moves into colder weather and people switch to socialising primarily indoors, prime conditions for passing the virus from person to person.
Colder, drier weather might also play a role in creating favorable conditions for the virus to linger in air and on surfaces.
Reasons that deaths are down from their peak include the fact that as cases are more spread out geographically than they were at the start of the US epidemic, hospitals are better able to cope with the caseload.
Doctors have also learned how to better treat severe cases of COVID-19 — by placing patients on their stomachs, avoiding the use of ventilators where possible and using them on low-pressure settings if they are required, and, perhaps most crucially, using steroids such as dexamethasone to tamp down a destructive autoimmune response known as a cytokine storm.
Since a greater proportion of people getting infected are younger, they are also less likely to develop severe forms of the disease.
Two vaccine makers, Moderna and Pfizer, say they might be ready to apply for emergency use authorisations towards the end of the month.
But if and when vaccines do become available, they´re only expected to be moderately effective, meaning that people will need to continue to adhere to masking, social distancing, and hand hygiene to bring an end to the pandemic.
In an attempt to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed during the country’s second wave of the pandemic, Liverpool on Friday began England’s first city-wide trial of coronavirus testing.
All of the northwestern city’s 500,000 residents as well as people working there will be offered repeat tests, even if asymptomatic, under the pilot, which will initially run for two weeks.
Liverpool last month became the first region to enter the most severe tier of regional lockdown as it battled a spike in cases, followed by the nearby city of Manchester.
A month-long nationwide lockdown came into force on Thursday as cases began to spiral in all parts of England.
Britain is already grappling with the worst toll in Europe with over 48,000 dead after testing positive for the disease.
Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson said the pilot could save lives and “get the city out of tier three restrictions”.
Matthew Ashton, the city’s director of public health, told the BBC the pilot could last longer, saying they “want to make sure it is long enough for us to be able to see the impact”.
“The point of this is to get the city tested,” he said. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the kind of cheap new tests being deployed in Liverpool “can be a massive and possibly decisive use to us in this country in defeating the virus”.
The tests involve swabs and new “lateral flow” tests, akin to pregnancy tests, which can provide a result within 20 minutes.
New testing sites have been set up across the city, in schools, universities, offices and care homes, with the help of around 2,000 military personnel.—AFP
