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© Paul Kitagaki Jr./Zuma Press
The death toll in the United States from the coronavirus pandemic has exceeded 170,000, while the number of new cases has declined, reaching the lowest daily level since June 29.
The United States reported just over 42,000 new cases on Sunday, a steep drop from Friday’s total of more than 64,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The number of cases, however, sometimes decreases over the weekend before increasing by midweek. The total number of cases in the country has exceeded 5.4 million, about a quarter of the global figure.
Twenty states reported seven-day averages of new cases that were higher than their 14-day case averages, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins data. That number has been largely stable for four consecutive days of reporting. When an average of seven days is greater than an average of two weeks, it suggests that cases are increasing.
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Although the number of new cases has shown signs of slowing, the pandemic has continued to weigh on the country’s education system, derailing some plans to reopen schools.
Just a week after classes reopened for in-person teaching, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said undergraduate courses would go live for the fall starting Wednesday after “a wave of clusters of COVID-19 infection during the first week of class. ” The university said 349 students are in quarantine and 177 students are isolating themselves, both on and off campus. The school has over 19,000 undergraduate students.
The state as a whole reported 564 new laboratory-confirmed cases on Monday, bringing its total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 145,516. The seven-day average of new cases in North Carolina for August 16 was more of 1229, below its two-week average of nearly 1402, according to an analysis from the Johns Hopkins Journal of Data, suggesting cases are on the decline.
The University of North Carolina is not alone in seeing the virus emerge on its campus. The University of Notre Dame, one of the first institutions to bring students back to campus, has recently seen an increase in cases. As of August 17, the campus had 58 confirmed cases in two weeks.
In Arizona, where new daily cases have fallen sharply since July, a school district canceled classes scheduled to start Monday after more than 100 staff asked not to work for safety reasons.
A school in the Cherokee School District in Georgia announced that it would suspend in-person classes as the number of positive cases at the school rose to 25, with 500 students in quarantine.
Schools in states such as Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee have also been closed to in-person learning this month after students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus. Campuses take in-person learning indefinitely or for a few days for a deep clean.
In New York City, where the percentage of positive coronavirus tests has fallen to its lowest level since the start of the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said the state would be “aggressively conservative” on closing schools if necessary , but stopped before offering a specific threshold, as the size of schools varies. Earlier this month, Cuomo said all schools in New York City were allowed to reopen, including those in New York City, the country’s largest school district.
Deaths from the coronavirus are younger for many minorities, a stark disparity that offers a clear picture of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations.
Among people in the United States who have died in their mid-forties to mid-1970s since the start of the pandemic, the virus is responsible for about 9% of deaths. For Latin Americans who died in this age group, the virus has killed nearly 25%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of death certificate data collected by federal authorities.
Residents of the verdant Central Valley of California, including a large Latin American immigrant population, are falling victim to the virus at the highest rates in the state.
California added five counties to its watch list on Monday, bringing the total to 42 of the state’s 58 counties. Gov. Gavin Newsom said it was likely that San Diego County would be removed from the list on Tuesday.
The state reported 6,469 new cases on Sunday and said it had a 14-day positivity rate of 6.5%. Mr Newsom’s presentation on Monday showed that the trend line for California’s positivity rate remained relatively the same as previously reported taking into account a backlog of 14,861 positive cases. The state had previously experienced delays in reporting data, including a five-day period in which it was not receiving data from one of its largest commercial labs.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the state had reported 2,760 new cases of the virus, its lowest number since mid-June. He said the state has about a quarter of hospital and intensive care beds.
At the same time, according to data from Johns Hopkins, the seven-day moving average of testing per 1,000 people in Florida has declined for two consecutive weeks.
Maine health officials were investigating an outbreak associated with marriage after 24 people tested positive for the virus. Several states have struggled with outbreaks related to parties and large gatherings in recent weeks, even in states like Maine that have limits on gatherings. Maine has less than 5,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, one of the lowest numbers in the country, and at least four times this month new cases have fallen to single digits.
The economic fallout from the virus continues to squeeze American households. Census data shows that the number of people in the United States who cannot afford to buy food is increasing amid the pandemic. Demand from food banks has increased in recent months.
A very small and completely virtual Democratic national convention was due to start on Monday, without the usual fanfare. Suspected Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden plans to accept the Democratic nomination in Delaware, while President Trump next week accepts the White House nomination for re-election.
As states work to contain the virus, the federal government has made further attempts to make testing cheaper and more effective. The United States Food and Drug Administration on Saturday authorized the Yale School of Public Health to test for Covid-19 using saliva samples, instead of the typical nasopharyngeal swab. This method is less expensive and is expected to “reduce the demand for scarce testing resources,” said Trump administration test coordinator Adm. Brett Giroir.
On the vaccine front, Novavax Inc. said it was starting the second phase of testing for its investigational Covid-19 vaccine.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite stock indexes both rose on Monday morning, with the S&P 500 approaching a record high.
In other countries around the world, the pandemic continued to disrupt events and daily life.
New Zealand delayed a national election for about a month on Monday after an outbreak in Auckland locked out a third of voters. The elections, which are expected to be dominated by a debate over the government’s response to the pandemic, will now be held on October 17, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
Lebanon recorded a record 439 new infections and six more deaths on Sunday, adding to the burden on the country’s health system following the August 4 explosion in the port of Beirut that killed at least 178 people and damaged a large part of town.
The death toll in India has exceeded 50,000 as coronavirus infections continue to rise. The country reported 57,981 new cases, bringing the total to 2.65 million, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Write to Allison Prang at [email protected]
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