U.S. Covid Cases of the novel coronavirus surpassed six million on Sunday as many states in the Midwest reported increasing infections.
Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota have recently reported record one-day increases in new cases while Montana and Idaho are seeing record numbers of now hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Nationally, metrics on new cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and the positivity rates of evaluations are all declining, but there are emerging hotspots in the Midwest.
Most of the new cases in Iowa are in the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which can be holding some peer to peer courses. Colleges and universities across the country have seen outbreaks after students returned to campus, forcing some to switch to online-only learning.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday said his nation was sending a”SWAT team” to a State University of New York (SUNY) campus at Oneonta in upstate New York to include a COVID-19 outbreak. Fall classes, which began last week in the school, were suspended for two weeks after more than 100 people tested positive for the virus, about 3% of the whole student and faculty population, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras stated.
“We’ve had reports of several large parties of our pupils at Oneonta last week, and sadly because of those larger parties, there were several students who were symptomatic of COVID,” Malatras said.
Across the Midwest, diseases also have risen following an annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota drew over 365,000 people from throughout the nation from Aug. 7 to 16. The South Dakota health department said 88 cases have been traced to the rally.
More than eight months into the pandemic, the United States continues to struggle with testing. The number of individuals tested has fallen in recent weeks.
Many health officials and at least 33 states have resisted the new COVID-19 testing guidance issued by the Trump government last week which said those exposed to the virus and without symptoms may not need testing.
Public health officials believe the United States must test more often to find asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers to slow the spread of the disease.
While the United States has the most listed infections in the world, it ranks tenth based on instances per capita, with Brazil, Peru, and Chile having higher rates of infection.
Deaths After Positive Covid Cases
The USA also has the most deaths in the world at almost 183,000 and ranks 11th for deaths per capita, exceeded by Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Peru.