Joe Biden coronavirus adviser suggests four-to-six week lockdown for United States

A senior health adviser to Joe Biden has suggested locking down the United States for four to six weeks.

It came as the US set new records for coronavirus cases, and hospitalisations, and the daily death toll rose to the highest in six months.

Amid a nationwide surge Texas became the first state to record one million cases, and California was not far behind.

Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist appointed to Mr Biden's coronavirus task force, has been warning in recent days that America is "about to enter Covid Hell" and that the figures were "going to go far north."

He said high levels of personal savings, and low interest rates, could mean all wages and losses to small and medium-sized companies being covered during a weeks-long shutdown.

Mr Osterholm said: "We have a big pool of money out there that we could borrow. We could do all of that.

"If we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks. And if we did that, we could drive the numbers down, like they've done in Asia, like they did in New Zealand and Australia."

He added: "And then, we could really watch ourselves, cruising into the vaccine availability in the first and second quarter of next year, and bringing back the economy long before that."

According to a Gallup poll about one third of Americans said they would be unlikely to comply with a new month-long lockdown, about twice the number who said that in the Spring.

The case total for Wednesday was a record 145,000, topping 100,000 for the ninth day running.

A record total of 65,368 people are currently in hospital with the virus, and that has doubled in the last month.

Nearly 1,900 people died on Wednesday, the most in a day since May.

Corey Lewandowski, one of Donald Trump's most trusted advisers, became the latest person in the president's inner circle to test positive.

Mr Lewandowski believed he was infected while in Philadelphia last week contesting ballot-counting procedures.

In the US over 242,000 deaths have now been recorded, and 10.4 million cases.

Figures for daily cases are rising in 49 states, and deaths are going up in 39 states.

More than 12,500 coronavirus patients are in intensive care units, the highest since May.

Texas registered 10,865 cases of the virus on Tuesday, surpassing a previous record set in July.

One of the hardest-hit places in the country is the Texas border city of El Paso, which has 28,000 active cases, and has suffered nearly 700 deaths.

Mr Trump has been highly critical of moves to lock down but some state governors began to look at new restrictions.

In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said all restaurants, bars and gyms will have to close at 10pm, and banned private gatherings of more than 10 people.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, said American should "double down" on safety measures like masks.

He said: "The best opposite strategy to locking down is to intensify the public health measures short of locking down.

"If we can just hang in there, do the public health measures that we’re talking about, we are going to get this under control, I promise you."

Striking an optimistic tone about the vaccine, Dr Fauci added: "The cavalry is coming. But don’t put your weapons down. You better keep fighting because they are not here yet. Help is on the way but it’s not here yet."

Some researchers have estimated the overall US death toll could hit 400,000 by Feb 1.

Dr Julie Watson, a prominent health official in Oklahoma, said: "We are in trouble. If nothing is done soon to slow the rise in cases, our hospitals will be more overwhelmed than they already are."

There appeared to be an early split within Mr Biden's task force.

Dr Celine Gounder, another epidemiologist on Mr Bien's COVID-19 Advisory Board, told CNN: "With all due respect to Dr Osterholm that doesn't necessarily represent the entire advisory board, or what the Biden-Harris transition team is planning to do.

"Perhaps there are some places where you need to be more draconian, but I really don't think that's a national policy."

Dr Gounder said she "doesn't like" the words "lockdown" or "shutdown". She added: "I really think about this more as a dimmer switch."