WASHINGTON, July 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States topped three million confirmed coronavirus cases Wednesday as President Donald Trump pushed for schools to re-open amid a COVID-19 resurgence in many southern hotspots.
The US remains by far the worst affected country, with over 132,000 deaths, while Brazil — whose virus-skeptic President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for the disease — is a distant second with close to 67,000 deaths from almost 1.7 million cases.
As infections rose by a further 55,000 to reach a total of 3,046,351 on Wednesday, Trump called for students to return to their schools in the fall and lashed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for issuing guidance that he said was too restrictive.
The agency’s head later said the guidelines were “not requirements” and that the CDC would soon update its advice.
Prestigious universities Harvard and MIT meanwhile sued the administration after it threatened to revoke the visas of foreign students whose entire courses have moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The virus has infected almost 12 million people worldwide and killed more than 500,000 since it emerged in China late last year.
Several US states and cities have likewise had to roll back their reopening measures. Houston, for example, on Wednesday canceled the Texas Republican Party’s upcoming in-person indoors state convention as COVID-19 cases surged in the city.
Having just a handful of cases at the start of February, the US infection rate passed the one million milestone on April 28 and hit two million on June 11.
All the while, the death toll has been creeping up to its current figure of more than 132,000, almost one-quarter of the global total.
The current US death rate is however substantially lower than it was in late spring.
This is possibly because of a lag between infection and deaths among sick patients, but also because the country’s epidemic is affecting younger people, and because better treatments are now available.
Doctors have found that placing patients with breathing troubles on their stomachs eases the burden on their lungs, and are using blood thinners preventatively to stop catastrophic clots from forming as a result of the virus.
They are also using the steroid dexamethasone to stop a supercharged and destructive immune response, and the antiviral remdesivir to help ventilated patients recover faster.
Trump, for his part, has sought to blame China and the World Health Organization for his country’s epidemic, and on Tuesday formally began the process of withdrawing from the body.
His opponent in the November election, former Vice President Joe Biden, has vowed to undo the decision if he wins. — NNN-AGENCIES
