More than 5 million Americans have now tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus — double the number since June and far more than any other country in the world.
That’s about 1.5% of the population, or roughly 1 in 66 Americans. (Picture yourself on a nearly full standard city bus, including standing passengers, and assume one person in the crowd has the virus.)
While most advanced countries are seeing at least some progress against the pandemic, that is not true in the U.S.
Johns Hopkins University’s authoritative coronavirus tracker showed 5,010,679 positive tests at midday on Sunday; 162,555 Americans had died.
“As of this week, five states account for more than 40% of U.S. infections: California (with the most cases in the country), Florida, Texas, New York and Georgia,” reports CNN.
Nationally, on Sunday alone, more than 56,000 new cases were reported, along with more than 1,000 deaths, USA Today reports.
And the outlook remains grim.
“Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on CBS News’ ‘Face the Nation’ that the coronavirus death toll in the U.S. will be ‘definitely’ somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 by the end of 2020,” reports Axios.
“The concern now is that this has become so pervasive across the country that it could start to infect more rural communities that have largely been untouched to date and probably are a little more complacent,” Gottlieb said, noting that the virus continues to spread rapidly in Midwestern and Western states.
Despite the rising case count, President Trump continues to push schools to reopen in the fall.
“One high school in Georgia that drew national attention for reopening on Monday with packed hallways, saw a half a dozen students and three teachers test positive for the coronavirus,” reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
