The worsening US coronavirus outbreaks are “Fake News Media Conspiracy,” according to President Donald Trump on Monday via Twitter.
“Cases up because we TEST, TEST, TEST. A Fake News Media Conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. 99.9%. Corrupt Media conspiracy at all-time high. On November 4th., topic will totally change. VOTE!” he wrote.
Trump’s tweet followed reports suggesting a record-breaking number of new coronavirus infections in the country.
“Corrupt Media conspiracy at all-time high,” Trump added. “On November 4th., topic will totally change.”
On Sunday, the US posted a weekly average of about 68,767 new infections daily, the highest seven-day average recorded yet, based on a CNBC analysis of Hopkins data. The US recorded 60,789 COVID cases Sunday after daily numbers reached 83,757 on Friday.
Hopkins data showed that the overall US positivity rate, or the percentage of tests that turn out positive, is at 6.2%, up from around 5.2% last week. Illinois posted a positivity rate of 6.3% while Wisconsin has a positivity rate of 16%. Kentucky has a positivity rate of 8.4%.
Moreover, COVID-19 hospitalizations were increasing by 5% or more in 34 states as of Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data from the Covid Tracking Project. Fifteen states experienced record highs in hospitalizations.
Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases, said that US COVID cases are now growing “really in all parts of the country,” with high transmission rates across the Midwest.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing a distressing trend here in the United States,” Butler told reporters on a call. The spike in infections is caused by cooler temperatures as the country approaches the fall, he explained, stressing that “smaller, more intimate gatherings of family, friends, and neighbors may be driving transmission as well, especially as they move indoors.”
Coronavirus infections rose by 5% or more over the past week in 38 states as of Thursday, based on a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Figures show the US is now averaging about 61,100 new COVID-19 cases daily.
“The pandemic is not over. Here in the United States, we’re approaching a critical phase,” Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC director, said on Wednesday.
Hospitalization rates
″Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases, and that’s now leading to hospitals and ICU running close or above capacity, and we’re still only in October,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said during a press briefing Friday. “We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere,” he noted.
Tedros stressed, “Now is the time to double down” and to take quick action for arising clusters. “We urge leaders to take immediate action to prevent further unnecessary deaths, essential health services from collapsing and schools shutting again,” he noted. “This is not a drill.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said that the US is “at a tipping point” in its pandemic. “We’re likely to see a very dense epidemic. I think we’re right now at the cusp of what is going to be exponential spread in parts of the country,” Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday.
“I recognize that we are all getting tired of the impact Covid-19 has had on our lives,” Jay Butler, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s deputy director for infectious diseases, said on a call Wednesday. “We’re tired of wearing masks, but it continues to be as important as it has ever been and I would say even more important than ever as we move into the fall season.”
