“Today, Sunday, November 15, 2020, is the most dangerous public health day in the last 100 years of our state’s history,” Inslee said at a press conference Sunday. “A pandemic is raging in our state. Left unchecked, it will assuredly result in grossly overburdened hospitals and morgues; and keep people from obtaining routine but necessary medical treatment for non-COVID conditions.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also ordered three weeks of new restrictions during a press conference Sunday, including halting in-person classes for high schools and colleges, prohibiting indoor service at bars and restaurants, and shuttering entertainment venues including theaters, stadiums, and bowling alleys. The order also limits indoor gatherings to 10 people from no more than two households.
On Friday, Washington, Oregon, and California all issued travel advisories, recommending those who travel out of state quarantine for 14 days after returning. North Dakota’s Republican governor also issued a mask mandate for the first time in his state.
While cases have risen sharply, hospitalizations and deaths have also been creeping up: cities in states including Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Texas have announced they have no more ICU beds available.
Still, there is typically a 12-day lag between rising cases and rising hospitalizations, meaning the full effects of the 1 million new cases recorded this week won’t be felt in hospitals for several days.
Cases have risen through the fall as colder weather drives more people indoors, where there is a higher risk of breathing in the virus via tiny water droplets called aerosols that linger in the air. Social distancing measures that many Americans abided by in the spring and summer have fallen by the wayside for some as the pandemic drags on into its eighth month.
The likely prospect that people will gather in groups for Thanksgiving and Christmas also has experts worried.
“We know we’re going to get cases after Thanksgiving,” Amesh Adalja, infectious diseases physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told BuzzFeed News. “It’s just a question of trying to keep them as minimal as possible.”
Though it leads the world by far in the number of people who have had or died from COVID-19, the United States is far from the only country struggling to keep the virus in check.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed Sunday that he would be following protocols and isolating after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Johnson previously tested positive for the coronavirus in March and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
European countries including France and Germany have also re-entered lockdown in recent weeks as cases surge there.
Source Article from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/olivianiland/coronavirus-eleven-million-covid-19-cases
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