U.S. remains in top spot for new COVID cases
The U.S. continues to lead the world in new COVID-19 cases, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from earlier this week.
The U.S. was averaging 48.54 cases per 100,000 residents over the seven days leading up to the Dec. 8 report, which was obtained by Yahoo News. The number of weekly cases was down 7.3 percent from the prior week, but the CDC noted the drop was likely due to reporting delays from the Thanksgiving holiday, rather than actual reductions in the spread of the virus.
While the U.S. has the highest rate of new cases according to the internal CDC numbers, it’s not the only nation struggling: Italy, Turkey and Ukraine all had over 30 cases per 100,000 residents. Turkey and Brazil saw the highest increase in cases week-to-week.
As cases rise across the U.S., so do hospitalizations and deaths. Medical facilities across the country are straining to make space for sick patients as intensive care units become swamped with patients. The country also set a new record for single-day deaths this week, with the 3,124 people who died from COVID-19 on Wednesday topping the number of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
On Thursday, the COVID Tracking Project reported 214,000 new cases, 3,067 deaths and more than 107,000 people currently hospitalized.
More than 292,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 so far, according to tracking from Johns Hopkins University, meaning that at the current rate the country is likely to officially cross the 300,000 dead threshold early next week. CDC Director Robert Redfield said Thursday that he expected “probably for the next 60 to 90 days we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11.”
If Redfield is correct in his estimate, that would add another 180,000 to 270,000 total to the dead, surpassing half a million lost to the virus.
While rates have also shot up in Europe, the difference between how the U.S. is handling the virus versus some other governments is stark. In Germany, whose case rate per 100,000 is roughly half that of the U.S. over the timeframe in the CDC report, Chancellor Angela Merkel spent this week pleading with citizens to socially distance in the lead-up to Christmas.
“If we have too many contacts now before Christmas, and that ends up making it the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we will have failed. We should not do that,” Merkel said, adding, “There are still 14 days until Christmas, and we have to do everything we can to prevent exponential growth again.”
The country has been in partial lockdown for six weeks, but on Friday leaders announced a stricter lockdown for the period before Christmas.
President Trump in recent days has been focusing on his attempts to overturn the results of President-elect Joe Biden’s election. His most recent tweets on COVID-19 are about getting credit for the vaccines that are about to begin distribution in the U.S.
Congress, in the meantime, is attempting to settle on a deal for another COVID-19 relief bill, having failed to pass any follow-up to March’s CARES Act. Two important deadlines loom that could exacerbate the problems of millions of Americans: A federal eviction moratorium is set to expire on Dec. 31, which could result in many losing their homes, and extended unemployment benefits put in place by the CARES Act end on Dec. 26, potentially cutting off the only remaining income streams for those who’ve lost their jobs due to the economic downturn caused by the virus.
Jana Winter contributed reporting to this story.
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