US coronairus: Most of the US is heading in the wrong direction again with Covid-19 cases

This is exactly what doctors feared would happen in the weeks following Labor Day, said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

“A couple of weeks ago, as we went in to Labor Day, we were talking about exactly this — and our worry that coming out of Labor Day, as we’ve seen after Memorial Day and July Fourth, we’d see an increase,” he said.

“And unfortunately, we’re walking into the fall, where weather gets colder. We’re going to spend more time indoors. So this is not where we want to be as a country right now.”

Wisconsin also reported a record number of new cases — 2,533 on Friday. Health officials urged people to stay home, keep at least 6 feet of distance from those outside their household, and wear masks in public.

Nationwide, more than 6.7 million people have been infected with coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University data. As of 3:45 p.m. ET Sunday, more than 199,400 have died.

A state doing well says keep up the testing

But some states are showing continued progress. On Sunday, Maryland announced a new record-low test positivity rate — 1.89%. And there’s more good news.

“Total current hospitalizations have fallen below 300 for the first time since March 30, to 281,” Gov. Larry Hogan’s office said. “There are 68 ICU beds in use — the first time ICU levels have dropped below 70 since March 26.”

Study find more links between pandemic and mental health

As Covid-19 intensified in the US, so did levels of stress and depression, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances.

The study of more than 6,500 people found that several factors may have worsened people’s stress.

The biggest risk for symptoms of depression was a pre-existing mental health diagnosis prior the pandemic, researchers found.

But symptoms of stress and depression were also associated more with personal exposure, rather than public spread — suggesting “concerns about contracting the disease outweighed concerns about pandemic-related disruptions in daily life,” the researchers said.

“Approximately a quarter of the sample (23.5%) reported that they or a close other had been exposed to COVID-19 (e.g., experienced symptoms, were diagnosed),” researchers wrote in the report published Friday.

Employment also had a big impact, with those who lost their jobs suffering most, the study found.

Those “remaining employed as an ‘essential’ worker may have given new meaning to respondents’ work that reduced their risk for depression.”

Researchers said another factor in pandemic-related stress is how often participants were exposed to conflicting information from the news and social media.

People were immersed in news an average of seven hours a day, they found, and acute stress increased as time went on.

But consistent, accurate and reliable news reports may be one of the best ways to control stress, the researchers suggested.

Why Black and Hispanic Americans often suffer more

Not everyone has the luxury of working from home. And since many minorities have public-facing jobs, this pandemic has hit them especially hard.

“American Indians and Alaskan Natives and African Americans have been hospitalized at rates 3.5 times higher than Whites,” US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said.

“Hospitalization rates are three times higher for Hispanics compared to Whites.”

The pandemic exposes health disparities and structural conditions that contribute to those disparities, the surgeon general said.

“Social distancing and teleworking are critical to preventing spread of coronavirus, yet only one in five African Americans and one in six Hispanic Americans have a job that allows him to work from home,” Adams said.

People of color are also more likely to live in “densely packed urban areas” and in multi-generational homes. They’re also more likely to use public transportation, he said.

“Combined, these and other factors create a greater risk for spread of a highly contagious disease like Covid-19.”