Covid-19 Live Updates: U.S. Hits a Record 121,000 Daily Cases

The coronavirus is leaving its mark on daily life across the country, with the number of new infections climbing in nearly every state.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/06/world/covid-19-coronavirus-updates


Our daily update is published. States reported record numbers of tests (1.5 million) and cases (116k). Hospitalizations continue their sharp rise. The death toll was 1,124.


https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1324504054400053248



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What does it look like when a country sets a record for coronavirus cases — and then breaks it again the next day?

The United States recorded at least 121,00 new infections on Thursday, a day after hitting 100,000 for the first time since the pandemic began, and for many Americans, fatalism was the order of the day.

“We knew it was just a matter of time,” said Matt Christensen.

Mr. Christensen was sitting in a minivan in Racine, Wis., his wife next to him and their three children in the back seat, waiting to be tested for the virus. Nearby, feverish and desperate, other people confined to their cars also waited.

On Thursday, as they waited, the coronavirus was spreading relentlessly across America, and America was speeding toward yet another record.

In a single day across America, from dawn to nightfall, it churned through homes, workplaces, hospitals, schools and laboratories.

In Cleveland, lab workers began another grinding day of processing coronavirus tests. In Minot, N.D., a hospital scrambled to find space for the crush of patients who came through the doors. And in Unionville, Conn., grieving relatives planned the funeral of a family’s 98-year-old matriarch, who died from the virus.

In the morning, governors began what is now a familiar routine: pleading in front of news cameras for Americans to do their part to stop the spread of the virus.

“This virus doesn’t care if we voted for Donald Trump, doesn’t care if we voted for Joe Biden,” Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said two days after Americans went to the polls. “It’s coming after all of us.”

In Ohio, which set its own record Thursday, a giant fridge at the Cleveland Clinic, glowed with rows and rows of coronavirus samples. Technicians shook test tubes and squinted at graphs on computer screens, trying to determine whether yet another patient had tested positive. “I work, I go home, I come back,” one lab supervisor said.

In Virginia, students in the Henry County Public Schools district were at work in their classes. But 22 staff members and students had tested positive, and hundreds more had been quarantined. So the superintendent went before the school board to recommend that the district revert to virtual learning until January. The vote was unanimous, and come Monday, the district’s schools will close.

In Minot, N.D., patients crammed an emergency room at Trinity Health, waiting to be admitted. The entire floor dedicated to coronavirus patients had no more available beds. Dr. Jeffrey Sather, the chief of staff, called other large hospitals around the state to see if he could send some patients there. But every hospital was also full.

Many on his staff were working overtime, and Dr. Sather said he was worried about all they were seeing every day. “They are witnessing people suffocate to death on a regular basis,” he said.

In Connecticut, Amanda Harper had always imagined her grandmother’s funeral as a full celebration of a life. The service for Juliette Marie Foley, 98, would have been at a church, followed by family time where loved ones would have pored over old photos and swapped stories.

But that was before the pandemic.

In October, Ms. Foley contracted the coronavirus. An avid baker and seamstress, she died on the last day of the month.

On Thursday afternoon, there were still details for the family to consider. Would the Zoom link to the funeral work? Could they keep those few attending in person safe?

“This pandemic has robbed us of the way we say goodbye,” said Ms. Harper.

By nightfall, the nation hurtled past the 100,000-case mark once again. Sixteen states set daily case records on Thursday, and three had death records. In 28 states, there have been more cases announced in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch.

A quarter of a million coronavirus infections have been reported at colleges and universities across the United States, according to a New York Times survey, as schools across the nation struggle to keep outbreaks in check.

The bulk of the cases have occurred since students returned for the fall semester, with more than 38,000 new cases reported in the past two weeks alone.

And the numbers are almost certainly an undercount.

The Times’s survey — which includes more than 1,700 American colleges and universities, including every four-year public institution and every private college that competes in N.C.A.A. sports — is believed to be the most comprehensive tally available. But the lack of a centralized national tracking system or consistent statewide data means the full toll is hard to capture.

When The Times last tallied campus cases on Oct. 22, the figure was 214,000. Now it is more than 252,000.

More than a third of U.S. universities welcomed students back in some capacity this fall.

Some of them have appeared to keep the virus in check, primarily through extensive testing programs, even as they try to provide some semblance of a normal college experience for their students.

But others have done less well, failing to enforce social distancing and other preventive measures in an environment that normally revolves around communal living, group activities, large social gatherings and in-person learning.

Many school officials blame students when there are spikes in cases, chastising them for failing to abide by the new rules that have transformed campus life in 2020.

At Syracuse University, school had barely opened when officials issued an open letter castigating a group of students who had thrown a large party and “selfishly jeopardized the very thing that so many of you claim to want from Syracuse University — that is, a chance at a residential college experience.”

Syracuse has reported 257 coronavirus cases since March.

Some students say administrators should have seen it coming when they chose to reopen in person.

“It’s very difficult to say whether, you know, it’s really on students for throwing these honestly reckless parties, or whether they’re just simply acting how college students are going to act in these kind of situations,” Dylan Brooks, a senior at Arizona State University told his school newspaper. “Of course, if you’re bringing A.S.U. college students back to A.S.U., this is how they’re going to act.”

The school, which has 44,000 students, has reported 2,518 cases.

The coronavirus has been responsible for at least 80 deaths on college campuses this year. While most of those deaths were reported in the spring and involved school employees, several students have died in recent weeks as a result of the virus.

As case numbers skyrocket across the nation, that number is expected to rise.

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“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus