Hospitals May Reach Capacity As Coronavirus Cases Climb

ACROSS AMERICA — Hospital beds could be in significant demand in some states soon as confirmed coronavirus cases continue to climb across the United States.

Concerns of having enough room to treat patients have been raised in Utah, Tennessee, Hawaii and Texas, among others, according to the New York Times.

In Utah, hospital administrators have warned Gov. Gary Herbert they could be forced to ration access to their already filled intensive care units. Officials in Hawaii are considering airlifting any virus patient in critical condition off the island.

The number of aides in the office of Vice President Mike Pence who have tested positive for the coronavirus continues to grow. Five of his aides, including chief of staff Marc Short, had tested positive as of midday Sunday.

Still, Pence continues to campaign in the days ahead of the Nov. 3 election. It's a move questioned by health experts even though Pence and his wife both reported negative coronavirus tests on Sunday.

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a Johns Hopkins University official and former Maryland state health department director, said in an Independent report campaigning is not on the list of essential activities for those who may have come into contact with someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus.

“Anything that does not have to be done in person and anything not related to his job as vice president would not be considered essential,” the doctor said.

The United States hit a sobering milestone heading into the weekend, prompting the nation's top infectious disease expert to once against suggest a national mask mandate be put in place.

As the U.S. reported a staggering 85,000 new coronavirus cases on Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested during an interview that a nationwide mask mandate would help control the recent surge in cases.

He did, however, note a mandate would be difficult to enforce.

“There’s going to be a difficulty enforcing it,” Fauci told CNN on Friday, “but if everyone agrees that this is something that’s important and they mandate it and everybody pulls together and say, you know, we’re going to mandate it but let’s just do it, I think that would be a great idea to have everybody do it uniformly.”

Fauci's suggestion comes as new cases of coronavirus race across Midwest and Mountain West states. Before Friday's record, the country hadn't seen a day like it since July 16, when a summer surge across the Sun Belt resulted in 75,687 new cases in a single day.

The number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus has risen 40 percent in the past month, according to The New York Times. About 41,000 people are now hospitalized across the country.

At U.S. colleges, more than 214,000 coronavirus cases have been identified so far this year, according to a New York Times survey. More than 35,000 cases of those cases have been identified since early October.

Though some colleges moved all their fall classes online, many campuses remained open even as positive tests accumulated by the hundreds or thousands. Of more than 1,700 institutions surveyed by The Times, more than 50 reported at least 1,000 cases over the course of the pandemic. More than 375 colleges have reported at least 100 cases.

Meanwhile, a coronavirus vaccine trial led by Johnson & Johnson was cleared to restart after it was paused earlier this month due to an unexplained illness in a participant, according to The Washington Post, citing two individuals familiar with the trial who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The trial was paused due to an unexplained illness in a participant, but will restart after investigators concluded the man’s stroke did not appear to be related to the vaccine.

The AstraZeneca vaccine trial, on hold in the United States since early September, also was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday to restart its trial.

The Latest Numbers

At least 871 new coronavirus deaths and 71,586 new cases were reported in the United States on Friday, according to a New York Times database. Over the past week, there have been an average of 68,110 cases per day, an increase of 32 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

As of Sunday, 37 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

More than 8.6 million people in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus as of midday Sunday, and more than 225,000 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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