While some, including President Donald Trump, have said increased testing is driving the rise in cases, the data doesn’t bear that out. The seven-day average of new tests on Thursday was over 1.4 million, up by about 8.3% compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of COVID Tracking Project data. The rise in cases far outpaces that, with a week-over-week rise of more than 32%, on an average weekly basis.
And the so-called positivity rate has been increasing, too. Epidemiologists say the percent of positive tests can be a helpful figure to determine whether an outbreak is expanding and whether an area is conducting enough testing. In the U.S., the seven-day average positivity rate rose to 9.1% from 7.2% a week ago, according to Hopkins data.
The surge of the virus is beginning to overwhelm hospitals in some areas. Dr. Alan Kaplan, CEO of UW Health at the University of Wisconsin, said Thursday his system’s hospitals are overwhelmed in both rural and urban communities.
“We are short of staff all times, either because they have Covid or they have some other illness and we need to rule out Covid before we bring them back to work,” he said on “Squawk on the Street.” “There is no surplus now.”
— Charts by CNBC’s Nate Rattner.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/13/us-reports-record-153400-new-covid-cases-as-dr-fauci-urges-americans-to-be-careful-it-is-not-futile.html
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