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Saturday was the 19th day in a row the United States has reported more than 100,000 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins. Peak records in the spring and summer of new cases did not exceed 60,000.
At least 24 hospital executives have warned the American Hospital Association that they are experiencing a staffing shortage, said Nancy Foster, the association’s vice president for quality and patient safety policy. Increases in hospitalization rates are often followed by increases in the number of deaths.
To date, 24,291 deaths have been reported during the month of November. This represents 9.5% of deaths during the pandemic.
States report milestones
The actual number of cases is likely to be “multitudes” higher than the 12 million reported because there aren’t enough people tested, said Dr Esther Choo, professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.
Choo said she was particularly concerned about how quickly new cases were accelerating.
“So many states have test positivity rates above 20%, which means we are way behind in our confirmed cases,” she told CNN’s Erica Hill.
And positivity testing is just one of the discouragingly highs in the United States.
Mississippi reported a single-day record in the state with 1,972 cases on Saturday, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health.
Thanksgiving trip despite CDC recommendation against it
Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged against Thanksgiving travel and celebrating with anyone outside your own home as cases are skyrocketing. But health officials suspect many will visit family and friends and spread the virus further – multiple times, without knowing it.
Health experts, however, stress that a negative test result will not guarantee that a person will not carry the virus to a Thanksgiving gathering, as a test will not necessarily detect new infections. A person who is already infected could test negative, go to a dinner party a few days later, and spread the disease.
Maintain the virus
For now, experts urge the public to use measures such as wearing masks, social distancing, crowd avoidance and hand washing to curb the spread until promising vaccines and treatments are available.
A race to develop an effective vaccine against the virus has brought promising results, with Moderna announcing earlier this month that its vaccine candidate has a 94.5% effect against the coronavirus.
While EUA’s request is “encouraging,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America stressed on Friday that a transparent review of Pfizer’s data was still needed.
And if the vaccine is given the green light, “clinical trials and data collection must continue,” Dr Barbara Alexander, president of IDSA, said in the statement.
“Measures that include wearing masks, frequent hand washing, maintaining physical distance and limiting the size of gatherings will remain crucial,” the statement said. “Finally, new federal funding must be provided for widespread, fair and equitable distribution of vaccines in addition to campaigns to build confidence in vaccines.”
CNN’s Christina Maxouris, Hollie Silverman, Holly Yan, Claudia Dominguez, Jamie Gumbrecht, Jacqueline Howard and Lauren Mascaren contributed to this report.
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