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In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the United States should brace for a domestic coronavirus outbreak. Over the past six months, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. has risen dramatically, and the U.S. currently has the largest outbreak in the world. As of October 11, more than 7.7 million people across every state, Washington, D.C., and four territories have tested positive for the disease, and more than 214,000 people with the virus have died.
In March, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and President Trump declared a national state of emergency. Now, infection rates continue to grow across the globe: More than 37.2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported across nearly every country, with deaths surpassing 1 million.
Here’s everything to know about the spread of the virus in the U.S.
How many new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S.?
As of October 11, there have been at least 7,748,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., and the death toll is now at least 214,185.
Back in May, President Trump predicted that the U.S. would see “anywhere from 75,000, 80,000, to 100,000” fatalities from the virus. Now, the U.S. has reported more deaths from COVID-19 than any other country. Though the U.S. accounts for 4 percent of the world’s population, it has had around 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths — by far the largest gap of any affluent country. Still, many public-health experts believe that the official numbers still significantly underestimate the pandemic’s true toll. If current trends continue, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that the death toll could reach 378,000 by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the CDC expects the U.S. could hit 233,000 deaths by the end of the month.
Though cases had been on a downward trajectory after the widespread lockdowns in March and April, the virus spread rapidly throughout the summer — especially in regions of the country that were early to reopen, including the South and West. Now, with the arrival of fall and students across the country returning to school, we are beginning to see another surge in cases. Over the past week, the country has reported an average of 44,280 new cases per day, a 6-percent increase from the average just two weeks earlier. On October 9, six states — Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia — reported record single-day increases in their case counts. And as the U.S. counted more than 50,000 new cases for the third consecutive day (for the first time since August), the UN announced a new daily high of 350,000 infections reported worldwide.
California has had the largest outbreak in the country, recording more than 854,302 cases, though the Times points out that other states, including Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, have had a higher number of cases per capita. New York, the early epicenter of the pandemic, has recorded a total of 477,870 cases, including 9,789 in the past seven days.
Now, the New York Times reports that cases are surging in the Upper Midwest and the West, and we’re seeing many spikes linked to outbreaks at universities that have reopened. In recent months, younger people have accounted for a greater share of infections; a new study released by the CDC found that more Americans ages 20–29 are testing positive than any other age group. Across the country, the largest outbreaks have been in nursing homes, correctional facilities, and meat-processing plants. Additionally, federal data shows that Black and Latino people in the U.S. have been three times as likely to contract the virus as white people and that they have been nearly twice as likely to die from it. Children of color have also been infected at higher rates and have been hospitalized from the virus at five to eight times the rate of white children.
President Trump has repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the current outbreaks and told his supporters at a rally in Ohio in September that the virus “affects virtually nobody.” He has previously falsely claimed that “99 percent” of cases are “totally harmless” — despite the fact that he told journalist Bob Woodward in early February that he knew the virus was airborne and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” Speaking at a town hall event in mid-September, Trump denied that he had ever minimized the threat, though he proceeded to insist yet again that the virus will “disappear” and claimed that a vaccine could be ready in “several weeks,” despite the fact that his advisers have said that this time frame is extremely unlikely. On September 13, Trump held another indoor rally in Nevada, where thousands of maskless supporters gathered in defiance of the state’s social-distancing mandates, which forbid indoor gatherings of 50 people or more.
In early October, however, the president’s words caught up with him: On October 1, Trump confirmed that Hope Hicks, a top aide who accompanied him to the first presidential debate aboard Air Force One, had tested positive for the coronavirus. Within hours, he and Melania had tested positive, too. The president’s treatment involved several different drugs, some of them experimental; some of them recommended only for the most serious COVID-19 cases. Although he reportedly worried he “could be one of the diers,” Trump was back to holding large public events one week later, standing on a White House terrace and repeating his claim that coronavirus is “disappearing” for a crowd gathered on the South Lawn. Still, infections within the president’s orbit continued to climb, thanks in part to an apparent superspreader event he recently held in the Rose Garden.
How long will it take to reopen the country?
The widespread lockdowns of March and April have had serious economic consequences, with more than 857,000 workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits in the last week of September. Researchers at Harvard have estimated that nearly 110,000 small businesses closed permanently between early March and early May, and during the same period, an estimated 5.4 million American workers lost their health insurance. Though retail sales and the unemployment rate showed some improvement in recent months, the chair of the Federal Reserve has said that the U.S. economy is in a “downturn without modern precedent,” and economists are increasingly concerned that many lost jobs may never come back.
Meanwhile, as states have lifted restrictions, new clusters of cases have been found via gatherings in bars, churches, and other recently reopened places, and many cities and states have walked back their reopening plans as a result. A number of states that experienced surges ordered bars to close, including Arizona, Texas, and California — though Florida is now allowing bars and restaurants to reopen at full capacity.
Schools in a number of states have resumed in-person classes, including Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and many are already seeing outbreaks. Meanwhile, hundreds of school districts have said that they will start the fall school year remotely, including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Fransisco, Nashville, Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas.
The Trump administration has argued that rising case numbers are the result of expanded testing, which Trump has said is “overrated” and “makes us look bad.” However, public-health experts have said that the country needs to do even more testing to control the outbreak. Testifying before Congress on June 23, Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of public health, said: “The only way that we will be able to understand who has the disease, who is infected, and can pass it, and to do appropriate contact tracing, is to test appropriately, smartly — and as many people as we can.”
While it’s true that testing capacity has increased in many areas — as of mid-September, the U.S. was testing about 730,000 people a day — public-health experts have said that it’s not accurate to attribute the rise in cases solely to this and have warned that the outbreak is far from under control. In August, the CDC revised its guidelines on testing, saying that people who have been in close contact with an infected individual don’t necessarily need to be tested unless they have symptoms. However, the CDC reversed their recommendation on Friday following widespread criticism from experts, who noted that asymptomatic individuals can still transmit the virus and that the U.S. needs more testing, not less, in order to curb the spread of the virus.
Additionally, the views of one of Trump’s new coronavirus advisers have raised alarm among public-health officials. The New York Times reports that Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a frequent Fox News guest and recent addition to the Trump administration Coronavirus Task Force, has questioned the efficacy of mask wearing and advocated for a herd-immunity strategy of disease management — like that employed in Sweden — that most experts agree would be “catastrophic.”
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has said that New York City restaurants can resume indoor dining at 25 percent capacity beginning September 30, and malls and casinos are now allowed to reopen. Like most of the Northeast, New York has largely succeeded in controlling its outbreak, and Cuomo has said that travelers coming to the state from areas currently experiencing surges in cases must quarantine for 14 days.
What is the federal government doing to fight coronavirus?
In March, President Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, effectively freeing up to $50 billion in federal funds to help states and territories fight the spread of the virus, which he said would include expanding access to testing.
As testing capacity has improved in recent weeks, the Times reports that a number of laboratories are struggling to meet increased demand; in New York, widespread delays have meant that thousands of people have had to wait a week or longer for test results. Additionally, many patients who were promised free tests have ended up with unexpected bills.
In March, President Trump signed a $2 trillion stimulus plan, the largest in modern American history, which sent direct payments of around $1,200 to millions of Americans who earn less than $99,000, along with an additional $500 per child. Last month, Senate Republicans failed to pass a second, scaled-back aid proposal, which would have included additional funding for unemployment benefits, schools, and vaccine development. Negotiations on a new bill have been ongoing, although on October 6, the president ordered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to put everything on hold until after the election, claiming that “immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.” Disagreement over proposed plans continues apace.
On July 7, the Trump administration notified the United Nations that the U.S. would withdraw from the World Health Organization, effective July 6, 2021. In an effort to shift the blame for his own mismanagement of the crisis, Trump first announced that he would halt funding to the organization in April, a move that was met with widespread criticism from health officials and world leaders. A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry condemned the U.S.’s decision to withdraw, saying that it “undermines international anti-epidemic efforts, and in particular has grave implications for developing countries in urgent need of international support.”
The Trump administration has announced deals to fund vaccine research by a number of companies, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Moderna, and researchers have made a number of early steps that look promising. However, AstraZeneca recently announced that it would pause global trials of its vaccine to conduct a safety review after a participant suffered a “serious and unexpected adverse reaction,” according to the Times. The incident has prompted criticism from scientists and public-health experts that vaccine companies are operating with a lack of public transparency, particularly with regard to safety concerns.
The CDC recently told public-health officials to prepare to distribute a vaccine as soon as October or November. The news concerned some health experts, who fear that the Trump administration may rush the FDA to approve a vaccine prematurely in time for the November presidential election. Fauci had previously said a vaccine would not be ready until at least the end of this year or early 2021. Speaking to NPR, Moncef Slaoui, the chief advisor to the White House vaccine program, said that it was “extremely unlikely” that a vaccine would be ready by the end of October. Yet Slaoui said that he believed a vaccine would be available by the end of the year, and that there would be enough doses available to immunize the U.S. population “by the middle of 2021.” (However, it’s likely that a vaccine for children may not be available until much later.) Nine drug companies have issued a joint pledge not to distribute a vaccine until it has been thoroughly vetted, and Governor Andrew Cuomo has said that New York would form a panel of experts to review the safety of any vaccine put forward by the federal government. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that the U.S. will not join a global effort to develop and distribute a vaccine, in part because the WHO is involved.
In July, the Trump administration ordered hospitals to send all COVID-19 patient information to the Department of Health and Human Services instead of to the CDC, raising concerns from health experts about transparency, and whether data may be withheld from the public. A day later, CNN reported that some data had already been removed from the CDC website, including current ICU bed occupancy, health care worker staffing, and personal protective equipment supply and availability. In a recent letter, nearly three dozen current and former government health officials warned that the new policy will have “serious consequences on data integrity,” and House Democrats have called for a congressional watchdog agency to investigate the Trump administration’s data-collection practices.
On July 21, presidential candidate Joe Biden announced a $775 billion investment plan in caregiving programs, which would include a bailout for child-care centers, national pre-K, as well as more jobs and higher wages for caregivers. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act. If they succeed, as many as 23 million Americans would lose access to their health insurance.
What should I do to minimize my coronavirus risk?
In most cases, COVID-19 is not fatal, but it appears to pose the greatest risk to elderly people and those with preexisting conditions. According to the CDC, eight out of ten deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. have been adults age 65 and older. Doctors and medical workers may also be at greater risk, due to their higher-than-average odds of exposure.
The CDC has recommended that Americans wear cloth face coverings while out in public, and more than half of states now require residents to wear masks in public settings when social distancing is not possible.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week after Donald Trump was seen wearing a mask in public for the first time in July, Admiral Giroir, the assistant secretary of public health, said, “It’s really essential to wear masks,” adding, “We have to have like 90 percent of people wearing the masks in public in the hot-spot areas. If we don’t have that, we will not get control of the virus.”
If you have symptoms associated with coronavirus — coughing, fever, respiratory issues — call your doctor before showing up at their office: The virus is highly contagious and you want to limit the possibility of spreading it. If you are sick, the CDC recommends that you stay home and self-isolate, confining yourself to one room as much as possible and wearing a mask when you have to interact with others. Wash your hands frequently — soap and water and at least 20 seconds of scrubbing — and avoid touching shared household items, cleaning “high-touch” surfaces (like your phone) regularly. Your health-care provider and even local health department will help you determine how long it’s appropriate for you to keep up these precautions.
Regardless of whether or not you have symptoms, though, keep your hands clean, and seriously, stop touching your face and just stay home.
This post is being updated daily with new developments.
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