The United States is continuing to move in the wrong direction when it comes to responding to its coronavirus outbreak, with daily death rates now rising alongside the increased infection and hospitalization rates. On Tuesday, the U.S. recorded more than 1,000 deaths for the first time since June 2, with daily death rates only expected to increase due to states' rates averaging higher all throughout July. The country's death rate peak was in April, when over 2,000 fatalities were recorded in a 24 hour period.
Due in part to the relentless outbreak throughout the Southern and Western states, President Donald Trump resumed his coronavirus press briefings for the first time in three months at the White House on Tuesday. During the briefing, Trump seemed to change his previous stances on the outbreak, now advocating for public mask wearing when social distancing is unavailable, but still reiterated that the virus is just going to go away someday. Yet, Trump gave a harrowing warning that the outbreak is probably going to get worse in the U.S. before it is over.
"It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better," Trump told White House reporters. "Something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is."
The Pan American Health Organization's Director Carissa Etienne stated during a virtual briefing that the pandemic is showing "no signs of slowing down" in the Americas, according to Reuters. Etienne stated that some Central American countries were seeing their highest weekly increase of cases since the virus's initial outbreak. She also highlighted that 900,000 new cases and close to 22,000 deaths were reported for the region over the past week, with more coming from Brazil, Mexico and the United States.
Total Global Cases: Over 15 Million
Total Deaths: Over 618,000
Total Recovered: Over 9.1 Million
New C.D.C. Data
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) released new data on Tuesday that shows only a small percentage of people in 10 locations in the United States have antibodies for the coronavirus as of May, which means that more of the population is still susceptible to infection. The data was published in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine as well as the C.D.C.'s website.
The study looks at blood samples drawn from 10 geographic regions in the U.S., including New York, Utah, Washington, and Florida. Most of the sample were collected in two rounds, one in early spring when infections first started in the U.S. and the other several weeks later.
Researchers found that 24% of the population from the New York City area had antibodies as of early May. This was the highest proportion of all the locations studies, but still below the 60-70% needed for herd immunity. Herd immunity is the point where most of the population in immune to the virus so it has difficulty spreading. Other areas saw their percentages in the range of 3-5%.
In addition to antibody mapping, the C.D.C.'s report reiterates its earlier projections that the United States' outbreak is about 2 to 13 times higher than the confirmed numbers reported. The high amount of unconfirmed cases is mostly due to many infected individuals remaining asymptotic throughout the entirety of their infection; they don't know that they are sick.
"The finding may reflect the number of persons who had mild or no illness, or who did not seek medical care or undergo testing but who still may have contributed to ongoing virus transmission in the population," the researchers concluded.