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Another terrible Covid-19 record has been broken in the United States. The country is already leading worldwide for the number of cases (2.7 million) and deaths (128,000), and five months since the virus was first detected in the US, the numbers are still increasing not decreasing. Yesterday, Wednesday, July 1, saw the highest daily increase in new cases at over 52,000. The previous record was set the day before on Tuesday, June 30, with 44,000 new cases. Every single day this week, the United States has set a new daily high.
The Trump administration has received criticism for its mishandling of the pandemic over the last five months, and this concern has ramped up over the last few days as the president has either remained silent or dismissed the crisis, directing his attention elsewhere. In an interview with Fox Business, Donald Trump told Blake Burman that he believes that the virus will just disappear, a sentiment he also professed back in February.
“I think we’re gonna be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to, sort of, just disappear, I hope,” Trump said. This echoes his claim back in February that Covid-19 in the US was “very much under control” and that the disease would disappear in April.
Kayleigh McEnany, the White House Press Secretary, has doubled down on Trump’s comment, saying: "The president's confident that it will disappear," adding "We're aware that there are embers in the country, we're aware that there are places with rising cases."
The “embers” refer to the eight states that have reported the highest number of cases yet: Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. Many local officials have hastily reversed lifting lockdown measures and the reopening of bars, restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters as hospitals are starting to become overwhelmed.
The president has claimed that the increased numbers being reported is simply due to increased testing; Trump even asked his officials to slow down testing to reduce figures. But if this was the case, there wouldn’t be an increase in hospital admittance. In the city of Houston (TX), hospitals reported going past capacity of ICU beds. Texas had 8,076 new cases on Wednesday.
Dr Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, stated in a hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Tuesday that the US was "going in the wrong direction," and the pandemic will get worse without interventions.
“I can’t make an accurate prediction but it’s going to be very disturbing. We are now having 40-plus-thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around, and so I am very concerned,” Dr Fauci told senators.
[H/T: Axios, The Guardian, Forbes, Financial Times]
