Virus review: New COVID-19 cases decline in US, experts credit masks. Get caught up.
The number of Americans newly diagnosed with the coronavirus is falling — a development experts say most likely reflects more mask-wearing but also insufficient testing — even as the disease continues to claim nearly 1,000 lives in the U.S. each day.
About 43,000 new cases are being reported daily across the country, down 21% from early August, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. While the U.S., India and Brazil still have the highest numbers of new cases in the world, the downward trend is encouraging.
“It’s profoundly hopeful news,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who credits the American public’s growing understanding of how the virus spreads, more mask-wearing and, possibly, an increasing level of immunity.
Even at 43,000 new cases per day, the U.S. remains far above the numbers seen during the spring, when new daily cases peaked at about 34,000, he said.
“It’s a good trend, but nowhere near what we need to be,” said Dr. Jonathan Quick, who leads the pandemic response for the Rockefeller Foundation, which has recommended the U.S. test 4 million people a day by fall.
The virus is blamed for more than 5.7 million confirmed infections and about 178,000 deaths in the U.S. Worldwide, the death toll is put at more than 810,000, with about 23.7 million cases.
In other developments:
- Responding to an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Tuesday apologized for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.
- With many schools still closed by the coronavirus pandemic, public and private alternatives are sprouting up across the nation to watch over children as they study.
- It’s the paradox of a pandemic that has crushed the U.S. economy: 12.9 million lost jobs and a dangerous rash of businesses closing, yet the personal finances of many Americans have remained strong — and in some ways have even improved.
- New York’s attorney general added to the growing pile of lawsuits seeking to halt disruptions to the U.S. Postal Service ahead of November’s presidential election, saying several communities in her state have gone some days without mail. The election is expected to have a record number of Americans voting by mail because of the pandemic.
- The hundreds of thousands of bikers who attended the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have departed western South Dakota, but public health departments in multiple states are trying to measure how much and how quickly the coronavirus spread in bars, tattoo shops and gatherings before people traveled home to nearly every state in the country.
- In light of the coronavirus pandemic, Kentucky Fried Chicken has suspended the use of the “It’s Finger Lickin’ Good” slogan after 64 years.
- Under strain from Europe’s fastest growing wave of coronavirus contagion, the Spanish government has cleared the way for more localized lockdowns and deployed the military to bolster the country’s faltering attempts to trace infections.
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