US coronavirus: Contact tracing is no longer possible across the South due to rapid coronavirus surges, health expert says
“The cases are rising so rapidly, that we cannot even do contact tracing anymore. I don’t see how it’s possible to even do that,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday.
The rapid rise in cases is considered a surge, not a second wave, because the infection numbers never lowered to where officials hoped they would, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a Facebook and Twitter livestream Monday.
But Florida is among at least 24 that are pausing or rolling back their reopening plans for the summer in light of surging cases.
“We really do need the vast majority of people to do this: to not just avoid crowded bars, but … (also) to wear the mask,” McClellan said.
Michigan governor calls for ‘mask-up campaign’
At least 31 states have showed an upward trend in average new daily cases — an increase of at least 10% — over the last seven days, as of Tuesday morning, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Those states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Only four states have seen average daily cases decline more than 10% over those seven days: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
One of the main drivers of cases now could be “silent spreaders,” or people who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic, according to a new study.
The report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that asymptomatic or presymptomatic hosts could be responsible for half of cases.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday called for a “national mask-up campaign,” saying it is necessary for everyone to wear masks to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Rising cases threaten hospital capacity
With increased spread comes concerns about exceeding hospitals’ capacity. At least seven states reported record numbers of Covid-19 hospitalizations on Monday: California, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
In Florida, at least 43 hospitals across 21 counties — including Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Orange counties — have hit capacity and show zero ICU beds available, according to data released by the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA).
Tables must have no more than four patrons, and music must be played at a level that does not require shouting, “to prevent the emission of potentially dangerous airborne droplets,” Gimenez said in a news release.
In Texas, Houston’s United Memorial Medical Center is seeing a rising number of patients that need a ventilator, chief medical officer Dr. Joseph Varon said Tuesday.
Lina Hidalgo, judge of Texas’ Harris County, which includes Houston, is wants a stay-at-home order in her county as coronavirus cases rise. A patchwork method, she said, won’t quell the virus in the long run.
“A long-term solution based on data instead of wishful thinking is what’s going to put our economy in the position to succeed,” Hidalgo told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Tuesday.
The 25-foot tent is meant to help South Texas Health System emergency room doctors treat and additional 20 coronavirus patients, adding to the 14 that the facility could otherwise handle.
“We are trying to reserve out in-house ER for the sicker patients,” hospital director Pablo Laredo told KVEO on Monday.
In response to President Donald Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless,” Dr. Boris Lushniak told Wolf Blitzer Monday on the Situation Room that the hospitalizations tell a different story.
“Yes, some people asymptomatic. Yes, some people have mild cases of disease. But in essence, we also are having a lot of people who are being hospitalized,” said Lushniak, who is dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health and a former deputy surgeon general.
“These are not harmless cases; this is not a harmless pandemic. And we need to be strong enough to begin correcting the president,” he said.
US commits $1.6 billion to Covid-19 vaccine maker Novavax
The US government has announced it’s giving the largest government Covid-19 vaccine contract to date, as a race to find and deliver an effective vaccine continues.
Novavax is the fourth company to receive federal funds to conduct large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials and manufacture its Covid-19 vaccine. Each trial is expected to include 30,000 people.
Novavax’s $1.6 billion will allow the company to test the vaccine and scale up production in advance of its possible approval, with the aim of delivering 100 million doses by February, Stanley Erck, Novavax’s president and CEO, told CNN.
CNN’s Jason Hanna, Shelby Lin Erdman, Elizabeth Cohen, John Bonifield, Jeremy Grisham, Adrienne Vogt, Kay Jones and Rosa Flores contributed to this report.
