93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
(AP) — The United States, which counts the most infections in the world, is seeing daily jumps in COVID-19 cases nearing the peak reached in late April.
Arizona’s 3,056 additional infections reported Thursday was the fourth day in a week with a increase over 3,000. Transmissions have spiked following Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s decision to lift stay-home restrictions in May.
Twenty-three percent of tests conducted in the state over the past seven days have been positive, nearly triple the national average, and a record 415 patients were on ventilators.
The numbers “continue to go in the wrong direction,” said Ducey, who confirmed that the state has postponed further efforts to reopen.
He pushed back against reporters’ questions about his position on the use of masks and his attendance at President Donald Trump’s indoor campaign event this week at a Phoenix church. Many of the 3,000 people who attended did not wear face coverings.
Mississippi announced a record 1,092 new cases of coronavirus, the second time this week its daily count reached new highs.
After making one of the most aggressive pushes in the nation to reopen, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has put off lifting any more restrictions and reimposed a ban on elective surgeries in some places to preserve hospital space.
The United States reported 34,500 COVID-19 cases Wednesday, slightly fewer than the day before but still near the high of 36,400 reached April 24, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Deaths tolls have dropped even as the number of infections have increased, possibly reflecting better medical treatments and better efforts to prevent infections among the most vulnerable, like nursing home residents. A rising proportion of cases in the U.S. is among younger people, who are more likely than their elders to survive a bout with COVID-19.
“This is still serious,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but “we’re in a different situation today than we were in March or April.”
