US braces for post-Thanksgiving Covid surge as 100,000 are hospitalized

Americans are bracing for a surge in Covid-19 cases following the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, as the number of people hospitalized hit an all-time high on Wednesday.

More than 100,000 people are hospitalized, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project, the highest number yet recorded, and nearly twice as many people as were hospitalized at the peak of earlier coronavirus waves in April and July.

Nearly 20,000 of those hospitalized patients are in the ICU, and at least 6,855 are on ventilators.

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Meanwhile, more than 150,000 people test positive for the virus nearly every day. Currently, the seven-day average for daily new cases in the US is hovering just above 150,000, having gone slightly down after reaching a peak of 172,000 on 25 November, the day before Thanksgiving. Case numbers began to climb in mid-October and began to soar in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. The country breached 100,000; 150,000 and, eventually, 200,000 daily new cases for the first time in November.

On Wednesday, Dr Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the coming winter would be among the most challenging in the nation’s history.

“The reality is that December, January and February are going to be rough times,” Redfield told a livestream presentation hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation. “I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

President-elect Joe Biden amplified the bleak forecast during a roundtable with workers and small business owners hard hit by the devastating economic fallout of the pandemic.

“Christmas is going to be a lot harder. I don’t want to scare anybody here, but understand the facts: we’re likely to lose another 250,000 people dead between now and January,” Biden said. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for further clarity on the figures underpinning his assessment.

While the average for new cases has seemed to plateau since the middle of November, public health experts warn that an uptick in cases is probably imminent after Thanksgiving as millions of people ignored pleas to stay home and avoid mixed family or social gatherings.

The Transportation Security Administration reported that 1.17 million people were screened at security checkpoints at airports on Sunday – the highest since the start of the pandemic. In comparison, about 2.8 million people were screened on the same Sunday in 2019.

In an interview with NBC on Sunday, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, outlined what the increase in traveling and gathering could mean for case numbers.

“What we expect, unfortunately, as we go for the next couple of weeks into December, is that we might see a surge superimposed on the surge we are already in,” Fauci said.

Ellie Murray, an epidemiologist at Boston University, said that while many people across the country took precautions, many others were probably exposed to the virus during the holiday.

“What everyone’s expecting is this week and next week, those cases from Thanksgiving will start to be reported,” Murray said. “Any hospitalizations that will result from that will be seen around mid-December, and then we’ll start to see people dying from the Covid they acquired around Thanksgiving by Christmas, the end of December.”

The nature of Covid-19’s incubation period means that it could take up to two weeks to fully realize how much spread occurred over Thanksgiving. That delay coupled with the short timeframe between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with New Year’s followed closely after, could mean that people may not realize the danger that gathering on Thanksgiving posed.

“People may think if Thanksgiving didn’t change how much spread there was, I’m safe to do Christmas. That’s almost certainly the wrong thing to think, but it may be really hard to convince people based on the data just because of the short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Murray said.

Many hospitals around the country are already quickly running out of room as they deal with Covid-19 hospitalizations stemming from the uptick in cases. The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 has been steadily climbing since the end of October. Total deaths in the US are close to 270,000.

Over the course of the pandemic, previous surges of the virus were concentrated in specific regions, with the north-east being hit the hardest in the spring, the sun belt seeing an influx of cases over the summer and the midwest seeing spikes in the fall.

But as the US heads into winter, Covid-19 is no longer concentrated in a single region. States in every region are considered “red zones”, where positivity rates are above 10%. Only seven states have a positivity rate below 5%, according to Johns Hopkins University, with the rate increasing in the vast majority of states.

With the power of managing the virus resting mainly on state and local leaders, some officials have started to implement or threaten tighter restrictions as cases increase.

Gina Raimondo, the governor of Rhode Island, issued a two-week stay-at-home order that started on Monday. Some recreational businesses, including bowling alleys and theaters, and bars will be forced to close during the two-week period. The state has opened two field hospitals that have 900 beds combined as hospitals in the state have reached their Covid-19 capacity.

New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said that tougher Covid-19 restrictions could be around the corner as the number of people hospitalized with the virus in the state have risen. “We could potentially do a New York PAUSE,” he said, referring to the shutdown the state went under in March when all but essential businesses were closed.

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, also said he was considering similar strict measures in counties where hospitals are becoming overwhelmed.

Murray emphasized that if those who traveled and gathered during Thanksgiving stayed home, and if people took cautious measures leading up to Christmas and New Years, then the feared uptick of cases could be mitigated.

“It’s not inevitable that things are going to go badly. Whatever Thanksgiving did to our spread has already happened, so that increase has happened,” Murray said. “We can see this horrible future coming, but there are ways to avoid it.”