https://www.vox.com/21523039/covid-coronavirus-third-wave-fall-winter-surgeCoronavirus: Mapping Covid-19 Confirmed Cases and Deaths ...
America is in the middle of its third nationwide surge in Covid-19 cases — what some are calling a “third wave” — with reported cases hitting a record high of more than 100,000 in one day.
With that, the much-feared fall and winter surge of coronavirus cases that experts warned of for months is here. Despite the US already suffering at least 235,000 Covid-19 deaths — the highest death toll in the world — it looks like things are getting worse.
As of November 8, the seven-day average of daily new coronavirus cases was more than 111,000, a record high. That’s up from a recent low in the seven-day average of fewer than 35,000 cases on September 12. The increase doesn’t appear to be driven by a single state or region — although the Dakotas, Iowa, and Wisconsin appear to be in particularly bad shape — but rather spikes across much of the country at once, with more cases reported in the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West.
The spike is partly due to more testing exposing more cases. But that can’t be the full explanation, because hospitalizations and the overall rate of positive tests are trending up. Over the most recent week of data, the seven-day average for daily tests increased by only 9 percent while daily new coronavirus cases increased by 34 percent.
Unlike the summer’s surge of coronavirus, the US isn’t alone in its latest wave — cases have risen in much of Europe, too. Still, that doesn’t mean this was inevitable: With aggressive measures, developed nations like Canada, Germany, and especially Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea have kept their Covid-19 caseloads much lower than America’s or Europe’s as a whole. And many European countries, unlike the US, have started to tame their outbreaks with new measures, from lockdowns to mask mandates.
Experts have long warned that a surge was coming in the US in the colder seasons. Even though the country never fully suppressed its summer surge in Covid-19 cases, most states have moved to reopen more businesses, including risky indoor spaces like restaurants and bars, as well as schools, with colleges and universities proving particularly problematic so far.
President Donald Trump, for his part, has encouraged the rapid reopenings — even after his own illness. As he left the hospital, Trump tweeted, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” He’s kept pushing a false sense of normalcy in the weeks since, even going as far as mocking masks and claiming, falsely, that they’re ineffective. (In reality, the evidence for masks keeps getting stronger.)
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