Things escalated very quickly over the weekend with the United States setting a new all-time record high number of coronavirus infections with over 84,000 on Friday and almost 80,000 on Saturday. That compares to the previous record set back in July during the second surge of the virus.
The United States reported 79,852 new infections on Saturday, close to the previous day's record of 84,244 new cases. Hospitalizations are also rising and have hit a two-month high and deaths are trending upwards, according to a Reuters tally.
So far in October, 29 states have set records for increases in new cases, including five considered key in the Nov. 3 presidential election: Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Cases in the Midwest set a new record on Saturday and the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in that region hit an all-time high for the ninth day in a row.
We're at a point now where hospital systems are talking about ratinoning care -- again-- and either turning people away or pulling the plug if someone else has a greater chance of survival.
I have no doubt those decisions are going to have to be made in some cases because there's no sign that we're going to stop it and plenty of signs that we won't.
The Trump White House, for example, straight up says they're not even going to try. Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows was very blunt during his appearance on CNN yesterday.
"We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas," Meadows told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." [...]
Pressed by Tapper on why the US isn't going to get the pandemic under control, Meadows said: "Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu." He added that the Trump administration is "making efforts to contain it."
All the therapeutics in the world will not change the fact that people are going to die because the political powers that be have decided it doesn't matter.
Trump took to Twitter this morning, as he usually does, and said reporting the number of new infections should be illegal.
We have made tremendous progress with the China Virus, but the Fake News refuses to talk about it this close to the Election. COVID, COVID, COVID is being used by them, in total coordination, in order to change our great early election numbers.Should be an election law violation!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 26, 2020
If there is someone in your life who still hasn't decided to vote for Joe Biden, this might be the last, best chance to convince them.
Death is a lagging indicator and if 1 percent of the people infected on Friday die, that means about 800 people received a death sentence. Repeat that for every day.