U.S. coronavirus cases are declining but challenges continue

New daily cases of coronavirus have fallen sharply in the US for weeks, but experts don’t know if Americans really have the discipline to put an epidemic under control.

The country recorded 43,000 cases on Thursday after more than 70,000 confirmed infections per day in July.

Hospitalizations will drop by a third, and more than thousands of deaths per day should logically continue.

“Robert Redfield, head of the Center for Disease Prevention and Prevention, said at a meeting in the following year: “In the next week, mortality rates across the country will begin to decline significantly. I think…medical magazines JAMA..

Nobody thinks America is outside the forest. The incidence (new cases per person) is three times that observed in Mexico or France.

And there are large regional disparities.

“I think I’m starting to change the course of what I call the southern outbreak in this country,” Redfield said.

However, there are warning signs. In the Midwest, cases are flat rather than falling.

“So Central America is currently in a deadlock,” he added, citing Nebraska and Omaha.

Health officials were afraid of repeating the spring, spurred by President Donald Trump, and less affected by the first wave, so mitigating precautions too early and rising summer waves in the southwest.

Back to school

To complicate matters, the doors for face-to-face learning are beginning to reopen in some state schools, especially in rural areas.

Early signs are not promising.

Schools in hotspots in Georgia and Mississippi experienced an outbreak and were soon forced into mass quarantine and closure.

“Unfortunately, it’s been more alert so far,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, said in a speech.

“It’s no surprise that students and staff can become infected and schools can become infected if the school feeder community has a high or growing infection.

Major cities such as Washington, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles have chosen Virtual Start.

Adults have a higher infection rate than children and are more likely to become seriously ill, so universities can be an even bigger challenge.

Alabama will restart all campuses, but will first test all students.

Elsewhere, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Notre Dame returned to distance learning after being discontinued after an outbreak attempt occurred.

Mr. Trump supports a full resumption and a return to normalization, but the federal government has left local governments to assess risk.

No formal standards have been set at the national level, and it is up to individual government authorities to make unofficial proposals.

“If you’re in the green zone, where you have less than 10 characters per 100,000 people, you can probably open a school,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a lecture hosted by George Washington University. Told.

On the other hand, if you have more than 100 cases per 100,000, it’s the Red Zone, and “if you want to get your child back, you really want to think twice. school“

Fauci and other experts say that public health interventions such as wearing masks, physical distances, and crowd avoidance can overwhelm the epidemic, even before the vaccine arrives later this year or early next year. I’m sure there is

I need patience. Even if the vaccine becomes available early in 2021, it will take months to return to normal, the time needed to vaccinate the population and obtain herd immunity.

Ezekiel Emmanuel of the University of Pennsylvania estimates that this will not occur by November 2021.

Another item on the wish list of many experts is faster testing.

The survey in early August showed an average wait time of 4 days, but depending on the location, a quick point-of-care diagnostic test with results in minutes may be available.

“While investing in new treatments and vaccines is wise, where are the investments in other response efforts?” Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, said on Twitter.

“Are you approved for cheap testing? Does the public health department help you track and analyze your data? There’s a lot more we can do right now.”

© 2020 AFP