Category: Corona Virus

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) Gov. Larry Hogan on Thursday called for all 24 jurisdictions in Maryland to move to the third phase of the states coronavirus recovery plan, which several counties have not yet done.

Anne Arundel, Montgomery and Prince Georges counties, as well as Baltimore City, remain in the second phase of the recovery plan, according to the governors office.

During a news conference Thursday afternoon, Hogan said while the conditions on the ground made reopening at a slower rate earlier a prudent decision, the health metrics show more reopening can be done safely.

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Solving and slowing the spread of this virus and saving lives continues to be our most important priority, Hogan said, And with our health metrics continuing to remain low and stable, local jurisdictions should be focused on our economic health and well-being as well.

Much of the state moved to the third phase at 5 p.m. on September 4. Under that phase, movie theaters and live entertainment venues can operate at up to 50% capacity or 100 people at indoor and 250 people at outdoor venues. Retail stores, churches and houses of worship moved to 75% capacity.

The governor also said he is disappointed that a number of counties have not allocated funding from the state to help Marylanders and small businesses. Hogan said only 35% of the CARES Act funding the state allocated for 19 smaller counties in the state has been spent.

Gov. Larry Hogan Plans To Use $250M From States Rainy Day Fund For Businesses Struggling During COVID-19 Pandemic

For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Departments website or call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.

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Gov. Larry Hogan Calls On Remaining Counties, Baltimore City To Move To Third Phase Of Coronavirus Recovery Plan - CBS Baltimore

JACKSON COUNTY, MI -- Health officials are showing increasing concern about the spread of coronavirus in Jackson County as the weather turns colder.

Daily new cases of COVID-19 are almost double the daily rate of September and four times greater than August, Jackson County Health Department officials reported on Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Related: As COVID-19 workload increases, Jackson County Health Department wans to hire more nurses

Hospitalizations have also increased, officials said, with Henry Ford Allegiance Health reporting 22 people at the hospital for in-patient treatment as of Tuesday, Oct. 20.

There have been 1,595 positive cases of COVID-19 in county residents since March, mostly in Jackson and its immediately surrounding townships, according to health department data. About 587 are considered active cases. Sixty residents have died from the virus.

The epidemiological curve for COVID-19 cases in Jackson County as of mid-October. Officials say the increasing daily rate is concerning as the weather cools and people spend more time indoors. (Courtesy of Jackson County Health Department)

About 4.7% of county residents tested for the virus receive positive results, according to the states seven-day average for the week ending on Oct. 17.

Health department officials are worried about how the virus will spread as days get shorter and colder, forcing people to spend more time indoors. The department asks people who have tested positive for COVID-19 to call close contacts to let them know as soon as possible and to immediately start their quarantine.

Health officials also remind people that receiving a negative COVID-19 test after an exposure does not mean they wont develop symptoms or test positive at a future time within the 14-day quarantine period.

Related: Michigan coronavirus numbers moving in the wrong direction, Whitmer says

Anyone with questions about the virus can contact the Jackson County Health Department at 517-788-4420, option 9, and leave a message. Call 911 if there is an emergency.

For COVID-19 testing in Jackson County, residents can contact the Henry Ford Allegiance Health COVID-19 Patient Hotline at 517-205-6100, or the Center for Family Health Hotline at 517-748-5363.

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Coronavirus cases continue to trend upward in Jackson County, health officials warn - MLive.com

Also, some experts have called for much more frequent random testing in all schools something that city officials are considering in order to increase the odds of discovering an outbreak early.

So far, most coronavirus testing for school workers has taken place at city-run sites outside the purview of the education department.

Out of 37,000 tests of staff members at city sites, 180 were positive, a city official said.

According to separate data reported to the state by local school districts, 198 public school students in New York City have tested positive since Sept. 8. (Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in early September ordered those conducting coronavirus tests to collect school information on children, but so far compliance has been spotty, state officials said.)

The citys new schools testing regimen, which began Oct. 9, calls for 10 to 20 percent of the school population to be tested once a month, depending on the size of the school. The city is applying this testing to its 1,600 traditional public schools; the citys 260 charter schools are not included.

Some researchers have questioned the efficacy of that approach, saying it could miss a large outbreak.

Its great that New York City is doing some level of random testing, said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Its not at the level that would be ideal.

One study recommended testing half the students twice a month.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said the city is looking to increase testing to as much as three times a month citywide. Such frequency, he said, would be much more valuable in terms of keeping the virus in check.

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In NYC Schools, Only 18 Positive Coronavirus Tests Out of 10,676 - The New York Times

Researchers in the U.K. will begin the first challenge study to deliberately expose volunteers to the novel coronavirus early next year, according to a statement. And the first participants in this trial will not receive an experimental vaccine before being exposed the virus.

In typical vaccine trials, volunteers are given an experimental vaccine and then followed for months until a subset of them are naturally exposed to the virus.But by exposing every participant in a trial to SARS-CoV-2, challenge studies can shave months, if not years, off of the typical vaccine trial timeline. Such trials can be risky, as COVID-19 doesn't have a cure if things go wrong, Live Science previously reported. Still, challenge studies aren't new and they have been an important tool for learning more about diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

Related: Coronavirus live updates

The new human challenge study will be led by researchers from the Imperial College London in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, clinical company hVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, according to the statement. The U.K. government will invest $43.4 million (33.6 million pounds) in the study, according to NPR.

In the study, the researchers will recruit healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 to 30 with no history of COVID-19 and no underlying health conditions or known risk factors for COVID-19 such as heart disease, diabetes or obesity. If given approval, the study will begin in January 2021 in London's Royal Free Hospital, where volunteers will be quarantined and given a lab-grown SARS-CoV-2 strain, according to NPR.

In the first part of this study, researchers will try to quantify the smallest amount of virus that a person would need to be infected with in order to develop COVID-19, according to the statement. Study authors will start by exposing participants to a tiny number of virus particles and then slowly increase the viral dose.

Following this stage, the researchers will test a number of promising experimental vaccines to compare them and see how effectively they work to prevent COVID-19; they also plan to study potential treatments and the immune response, according to the statement. The study designers haven't yet announced which vaccine candidates they will test.

"Deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen is never undertaken lightly," Peter Openshaw, study co-investigator and director of the Human Challenge Consortiumat Imperial College London, said in the statement. "However, such studies are enormously informative about a disease, even one so well studied as COVID-19."

More than 38,000 people from around the world have already expressed interest in participating in such challenge studies, according to the "1Day Sooner" website, which is keeping a tally of the number of people willing to participate.

Before any volunteers are enrolled, the human challenge study will be reviewed by an ethics committee and approved by a regulatory agency, according to the statement.

Originally published on Live Science.

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'Challenge study' to infect healthy volunteers with the coronavirus will begin in early 2021 - Live Science

More than three dozen coronavirus cases have been linked to a church in Maine that held a fellowship rally earlier this month.

The state's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday that 17 cases were linked to Brooks Pentecostal Church in Waldo County.

By Tuesday, that number had climbed to 42, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said at a news briefing.

The agency said in a press release on Saturday that the church in Brooks, a town of about 1,100 people 40 miles northeast of Augusta, held a fellowship rally between Oct. 2 and Oct. 4.

Shah said that about 100 to 150 people, including members from other churches, attended the rally. Masks were available but not routinely used, he said.

The church also held in-person services where people did not regularly wear a mask.

"Based on what we know right now, we expect the number of cases associated with this outbreak to increase, perhaps significantly," Shah said.

Out of the 42 cases, seven were confirmed at the Lighthouse Christian Academy, a school affiliated with the church. Other cases include several at four different schools in the area and one at a long-term care facility in Waldo County.

"Anyone can cause an outbreak," Gov. Janet Mills said at the news briefing, urging residents to continue practicing safety measures.

Officials advised that anyone who attended the event or spent any time at Lighthouse Christian Academy should monitor for symptoms of Covid-19, and if they show symptoms contact a doctor.

Efforts to reach the church were not immediately successful on Tuesday morning.

Waldo County has had 124 cumulative cases of coronavirus and 14 deaths, according to the state's COVID-19 dashboard. Statewide, there have been just under 6,000 cases and 146 deaths.

This isn't the first time a coronavirus outbreak has been linked to a church in Maine. At least 10 cases have been tied to Calvary Baptist Church after its pastor officiated an indoor wedding that has been labeled as a superspreader event that caused over a hundred infections and at least eight deaths.

Minyvonne Burkeis a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Excerpt from:

More than 40 coronavirus cases linked to Maine church that held fellowship rally - NBC News

From late July through September, students from more than 2,400 colleges and universities went back to campus to participate in what has ultimately become an American experiment in how institutions of higher education can operate during a pandemic.

It has been a few weeks since the most dramatic effects of college reopening have been seen, and in the time since, research has started to show that inviting students back to college probably led to a rise in Covid-19 cases in the US.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that young adults ages 18 to 22 saw a 55% increase nationally in Covid-19 cases in August.

The picture that emerges in US education is a patchwork one, both of how universities are dealing with the crisis and how their students are reacting to it.

Data from the College Crisis Initiative, a research project out of Davidson College, and the Chronicle of Higher Education indicate that just over 300 campuses are closed for the fall semester. Most schools are doing some type of hybrid learning, holding some or most classes online and offering select classes in-person, meaning they welcomed at least some of their students back to campus at the end of the summer.

Another study, released in September and currently up for peer review, was conducted by a group of epidemiologists, economics and higher education experts who used GPS tracking data from cellphones to look at movements of people at the end of the summer.

The GPS data was paired with reopening plans of schools and the Covid-19 infection rate in surrounding counties. The researchers found that campus reopenings led to an estimated 3,200 additional Covid-19 cases a day, primarily from students who traveled away from their home towns to go back to school.

Ana Bento, an infectious disease expert with Indiana Universitys School of Public Health and co-author of the study, said that the influx of cases was largely driven by the increase in flow of individuals from other parts of the country to campus.

Schools that invited students back for in-person classes saw a larger flow of students than schools that kept everything online, Bento said, even if students were coming back to campus to live off-campus or be with friends for the latter scenario.

Bento said that the rise in cases from college reopenings was mostly seen at the beginning of the school year when students were just coming on to campus. Now, schools have hit a plateau in the total number of cases after administrators implemented policies that probably averted more cases.

Researchers with the College Crisis Initiative, which has been tracking Covid-19 on college campuses since the end of summer, have noticed three common factors among schools that have had relative success at keeping the virus at bay: control of foot traffic to and from campus, a comprehensive testing regime, and a strong sense of community that encourages students to follow guidelines.

Danya Rangachar, a student at Davidson who is one of the researchers with the College Crisis Initiative, said that, by nature, small liberal arts colleges seem to have an easier time managing the virus because they can hit those markers more easily.

For example, Davidson, which is located in Davidson, North Carolina, and has a student population of just under 2,000, has had no major outbreaks of the virus on campus. Rangachar, a senior at the college, said that probably attests to the school being a small community.

Every student gets tested once a week. Staff and faculty get tested as well. Because were a smaller school, students are more likely to adhere to community guidelines, Rangachar said.

But testing alone cannot ensure a school can prevent outbreaks on campus, but it has been essential in helping schools monitor the spread of the virus.

The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, which has a student population of about 8,000, saw 147 positive Covid-19 cases just as classes were starting in August. The school shifted to online-only classes for two weeks, asking students to shelter-in-place, and has since reopened with mandatory surveillance testing of students living on campus, meaning the school tests students at random to gauge asymptomatic spread of the virus on campus.

Though the school has seen a small handful of positive tests on some days, students are comforted that the schools daily dashboard of cases can keep them abreast of the viruss spread on campus.

Kathleen Meyer, a junior at Notre Dame, said that she checks the dashboard every day and has been relieved daily numbers on campus have been relatively low since the semester started. People are still taking it super seriously. No one wants to get sick and have to go into quarantine, Meyer said.

A recent analysis from NPR, using data from the College Crisis Initiative on 1,400 schools that have reopened their campuses, showed schools like Davidson and Notre Dame that have mandatory testing are actually in the minority. A quarter of schools are doing surveillance testing like Notre Dame while only 6% are doing mandatory testing of all students, like Davidson. Most schools are only testing students who are showing symptoms, which does not allow a school to track asymptomatic cases of the virus.

It has been particularly hard for schools to monitor students who are living off-campus. The University of South Carolina, which has a student population of about 34,000 and has had almost 2,500 cases since August, has resorted to giving free swag to students who are chosen at random for testing but have the option to opt out.

Gabriella Daniels, a senior at the University of South Carolina, said that some students opt to get tested at clinics outside the university so a positive case does not go toward the universitys total case count.

I know plenty of people who have had coronavirus and they were just quarantined in their apartment, Daniels said.

Daniels said that coronavirus was particularly rampant at the beginning of the semester, pretty much everyone I knew at one point or another had coronavirus or had to quarantine, she said. Students on campus are still adhering to mask and social distancing guidelines, but off campus, it seems like the university really has no control.

Its become a normal thing Ive heard plenty of people be like, I already had it so its not like I can get it again. I have antibodies for a while. Thats just been everyones attitude, Daniel said. Everyones like, I see my friends getting it, and theyre perfectly fine and able to get out to bars, so whats the difference if I get it?

The casual attitude around Covid-19 is not shared by all college students. Trinity Cross said that she feels she takes the virus more seriously than her peers, turning down invitations to parties that she feels are too dangerous and ensures that she is around a group of friends who are regularly tested. After her cousin died of Covid-19 over the summer, the risk of contracting the virus looms large.

I can lose a friend at any moment I have chronic asthma, and I have seen death [from the virus] very closely, Cross said. I avoid certain outings with friends. I cant risk it its life or death really.

Her school, the University of Wisconsin Madison, halted in-person classes for two weeks after cases spiked to over a thousand on the campus of more than 40,000. Cross said she was disappointed with the number of students she sees still walking around campus without a mask even though the school requires masks in school buildings.

On days when shes walking around outside on campus, she counts the number of people without masks. On a recent Wednesday, she counted 20 people.

I thought they were going to send us all back home [at the beginning of the school year], and I was just preparing for that because I knew that people werent taking this as seriously as they should, Cross said. Right now were kind of just waiting for the next big thing to happen.

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Return of students to US colleges probably led to surge in Covid cases - The Guardian

People wait in the shade while in line to get coronavirus tests in Revere, Mass. David L. Ryan/Boston Globe via Getty Images hide caption

People wait in the shade while in line to get coronavirus tests in Revere, Mass.

People are getting the results of coronavirus tests in the U.S. faster than they were in the spring, but testing still takes far too long to help with effective disease control measures such as contact tracing and quarantining, according to the results of a large national survey.

The survey, which is conducted monthly by a consortium of researchers from Northeastern, Northwestern, Harvard and Rutgers universities, also finds that Hispanics and African Americans are waiting about a day longer than whites on average, underscoring yet another way the pandemic is hitting minorities harder.

The researchers also found that a disturbingly high proportion of those testing positive almost half are never contacted by a health worker to determine who they may have infected, a crucial step for preventing outbreaks.

"That is how you limit the spread of the disease and limit the number of people who have to socially isolate and avoid lockdowns," says Dr. David Lazer of Northeastern University, who led the team conducting the survey. "The good news is there has been some improvement. The bad news is everything is still taking far too long."

The researchers surveyed 52,329 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in July, August and September as part of a series of ongoing surveys the team has been conducting since April.

Of those surveyed, 12,911 got a coronavirus test, including 8,843 whose sample was collected with a nasal swab.

Among that group, the average wait time for results was 2.7 days in September, down from four days in April, the researchers found. In addition, the proportion of people getting their results back within 24 hours increased from 23% to 37%.

While that's an improvement, the turnaround time is still "too slow in most cases to support a successful strategy of contact tracing," and most people are still waiting far too long, the researchers wrote.

"Despite decreased average wait times, a substantial proportion of Americans still endure long waits," they added.

They noted that in September, 42% of those tested had to wait at least three days before getting their results.

The average black respondent waited 4.4 days to receive results and the average Hispanic respondent waited 4.1 days. In comparison, white and Asian American respondents respectively waited an average of 3.5 and 3.6 days, the researchers found.

"We know that African Americans and Hispanics are underserved medically," Lazer says. "This is reflective of that larger reality. It's terrible."

To keep outbreaks from occurring, people who are infected need to be contacted quickly, ideally within 24-36 hours to make sure they don't infect other people and find out who they may have come into contact with so those people can be told to quarantine and get tested.

In fact, only 56% of those who tested positive were contacted by a health worker to get contact tracing information, the researchers found.

White respondents and black respondents are roughly equally likely to report contact tracing 61% and 56% respectively.

"Delivering results is just one part of the testing process," the researchers note. "Many face difficulties accessing tests in the first place."

It's not just delays in test results that are stymieing public health efforts. Many respondents report obstacles in getting tested to start with. Thirty-five percent of people in the August and September surveys had to wait at least three days between deciding to get a test and actually getting the test, the researchers found.

The average person who got tested in the August and September surveys was tested within 2.5 days and waited 3.7 days for the results of the test. That means it took a total of 6.2 days between deciding on a test and receiving results, the researchers wrote.

"So even with the improvement in results, people are waiting about week. And by that point much of the harm that could occur in spreading through that person's social network has already occurred," Lazer says. "What you want to do is cut that to within 24 hours to 36 hours."

The reasons people have trouble getting tested varied. One-third of people did not know how or where to get a test, 23% said the testing site was too far away, and 14% said the test was too expensive.

The delays between deciding to get a test and getting final results were worst for Black respondents. The average white person surveyed waited 5.7 days for results after seeking a test. The average Asian American, Hispanic or Black respondent waited 6.1, 6.9, and 7.4 days respectively.

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Coronavirus Testing Delays Still Prevent Effective Disease Control, Survey Finds : Shots - Health News - NPR

There were no deaths reported this morning in the West Piedmont Health District because of COVID-19, but hospitals got a little more crowded. There were 24 new cases of the virus, and a net of 5 new hospitalizations. The "net" is because Henry County's total was reduced by 1. Franklin County continued its surge with 16 new cases, and Patrick County has 4. Henry County and Martinsville had 2 apiece. Franklin County also had 3 new hospitalizations. Patrick County had 2 and Martinsville 1. That's now 2,694 cases and 281 hospitalizations in the district. The death county remains at 84. A case on staff at Laurel Park Middle School was discovered Monday, prompting a letter to parents about the actions being taken. Martinsville Mayor Kathy Lawson said that Halloween will go on as usual. That is contrary to the CDC and even local statutes for safety. Virginia Tech officials say they plan to have in-person classes in spring semester. There have now beenmore than 40 million cases of coronavirus recordedworldwide. As the numbers tick up, vaccine trials are evolving. The UK government signed a contractfor the first human challenge studies, in which healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with the coronavirus in a controlled setting, and some receive an experimental vaccine. That's a different process than a typical Phase 3 trial, in which volunteers are given the vaccine with the assumption that at least some of them will be exposed to the virus in their daily lives. In the U.S.Johnson & Johnson and the FDA are still mumon why the pharmaceutical giant paused its coronavirus vaccine trial last week. That concerns health experts who point out that, when you're asking millions of people to roll up their sleeves and trust you, transparency is key.That stimulus deadline proposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosiis coming up today, and Republican lawmakers are doubtful she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will come up with something everyone will agree to.President Trump used a phone call and a campaign speech to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci as an "idiot" and to decry coverage of the pandemic. Just 16% of respondents in a new AP/NORC poll say they trust coronavirus information from President Donald Trump a great deal or quite a bit, down from 23% in April. And 64% now say they trust Trump only a little or not at all on COVID-19. Only social media, at 72%, is less trusted. The Virginia Department of Health reportsthis morning there have been 167,754 cases and 3,485 deaths statewide -- up by 28 from Monday. Some 11,955 people have been hospitalized. Henry County has had 1,250 cases, with 133 hospitalizations and 31 deaths. Martinsville has had 460 cases, with 64 hospitalizations and 23 deaths. Patrick County has had 306 cases including 55 hospitalizations and 26 deaths. Franklin County has had 678 cases, 29 hospitalizations and 4 deaths. Danville has reported 1,130 cases (39 deaths), and Pittsylvania County has had 1,227 (17 deaths).Johns Hopkins University's real-time mapshowed 40,464,761 cases worldwide and 1,119,369 deaths. In the U.S. there have been 8,215,605 cases and 220,134 deaths because of COVID-19.

(212) updates to this series since Updated 7 hrs ago

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Martinsville-region COVID-19/coronavirus daily update from state, nation and world: Oct. 20 - Martinsville Bulletin

Pedestrians wearing protective mask pass in front of the Fargo Theatre in downtown Fargo, North Dakota, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Colder temperatures are arriving in the Northern Hemisphere, and an insidious rise in new coronavirus cases in the U.S. and Europe is underway.

For months, health officials have warned against this possibility, and as these trends begin to materialize, countries are weighing whether to impose stricter measures to contain the virus' spread.

"Our worry has been that we would see a fall wave, that we'd see a big resurgence in the fall," said Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at theJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "And that has really been something I think all of us in the public health community have been worried about for a while."

In the U.S., coronavirus cases were growing by 5% or more in 38 states, as of Friday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University that uses a weekly average to smooth out the reporting. The nation is averaging roughly 55,000 new coronavirus cases every day, a more than 16% increase compared with a week ago.

"It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures, and again I emphasize without necessarily shutting down the country," White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told Johns Hopkins University during a recorded Q&A on Thursday.

Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has warned the daily number of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. remains dangerously high, especially as the forthcoming flu season threatens to complicate the nation's response to the pandemic.

When the U.S. descended from its first peak in April, where cases were largely driven by New York and other states in the Northeast, the number of new coronavirus cases "got stuck" around 20,000 per day, Fauci said. Ideally, the U.S. would've reported less than 10,000 cases every day, he said.

Then cases resurged in America's Sun Belt over the summer as states tried to reopen their economies. The number of daily new Covid-19 cases swelled to a high of nearly 70,000 cases a day before subsiding once again. However, new cases have since hovered between 40,000 to 50,000 cases a day.

"You can't enter into the cool months of the fall and the cold months of the winter with a high community infection baseline," Fauci said. He added that the positivity rate, or the percentage of tests that are positive, is "going in the wrong direction" in more than 30 states.

"I'm pretty glum at the moment because it does look as though in the majority of states there's an increasing number of cases," Dr. William Schaffner, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University, said. "There's a growing sense of coronavirus fatigue out there. People really want to get back to the old normal."

Schaffner said he expects the U.S. to experience a "substantial third wave" of infections and that it will be further complicated this winter by the spread of seasonal influenza, which causes many similar symptoms to that of the coronavirus.

People will spend more time indoors and likely fail to follow public health guidance as the colder temperatures arrive, which creates a greater risk for the cornoavirus' spread compared with outdoor activities, Schaffner said.

"During the summer, people went indoors for air conditioning, but they did spend more of their time outdoors. Nonetheless, it spread as people became lax in their attention to social distancing and mask wearing," he said. "As far as I can tell, that's growing."

Unlike previous outbreaks across the U.S., the coronavirus is now widely circulating through many of America's more rural communities.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin continue to report the highest number of cases per 100,000 residents in the country, according to Johns Hopkins data.

The outbreak has turned for the worst in some states. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers activated an alternative care facility that opened to overflow coronavirus patients this week at the Wisconsin State Fair Park.

In North Dakota, where cases have grown nearly 34% compared with a week ago, local officials are concerned that some hospitals may not have the staffing required to treat severely ill coronavirus patients.

"We have had a nursing shortage prior to the pandemic, and so the additional workload and additional hospital capacity that's come with Covid has impacted and affected staffing," said Renae Moch, director of Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health.

Moch said that at times, some residents of more rural parts of North Dakota have had to travel hours across state lines to Montana and South Dakota to seek care because hospital beds in Bismarck, the state's capital, were full.

"For us, this is the worst that it's been," Moch said. "I think especially with the flu season coming up and the possible impacts of that as we move into the fall ... we need to get a handle on this before it gets any worse, and I'm sure it can get worse."

Dr. Allison Suttle, the chief medical officer at Sanford Health, which has hospitals located in North Dakota and South Dakota, said they've seen more Covid-19 patients and have added beds to help treat people.

Because the current surge of coronavirus patients is happening now versus earlier in the nation's response to the pandemic, Sanford Health has had time to prepare and stock up on needed supplies, Suttle said, adding that she's confident they can treat patients who seek medical care.

However, people in more rural states delayed their routine health-care visits in the spring after they were told to stay home as the coronavirus swept through the coasts. Now, those people are coming into the hospitals in worse condition amid the growing number of Covid-19 patients, Suttle said.

"What we're seeing as the hospitalizations of Covid increase in direct correlation to the number of cases increasing in our communities, we're also seeing sicker patients that have delayed care in March and April that are now coming in with problems," she said. "They require more intense care, longer hospital stays, so that all compounds."

The United States is not the only country reporting climbing new cases.

When adjusting for population, the number of new coronavirus infections in Europe has now overtaken the United States, with Europe reporting 187 new cases per million people, based on a seven-day average, compared with 162 new cases per million people in the U.S. as of Thursday.

Europe which in CNBC's analysis of Hopkins data includes the 27 European Union countries plus the United Kingdom is reporting an average of roughly 97,000 new cases per day, up 44% from one week ago.

The World Health Organization warned on Friday that Europe's outbreak is "concerning" as the number of intensive care unit beds in some regions decline. Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead, said the organization knows "of a number of cities across Europe where ICU capacity will be reached in the coming weeks."

The virus' resurgence prompted France to declare a public health state of emergency. The U.K. placed tighter restrictions on gathering and indoor business operations in London, and threatened to take more action nationwide if necessary. Germany also imposed new measures to curb the virus' spread.

Meanwhile, Canada is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infectionsas the provinces of Quebec and Ontario report the bulk of the country's Covid-19 death toll, Carissa Etienne, WHO's regional director for the Americas, said on Wednesday.

CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

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U.S. is staring down a 'substantial third wave' of coronavirus cases. Here are the numbers - CNBC

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating a coronavirus outbreak at a Waldo County church, possibly linked to a fellowship rally that the congregation held between Oct. 2 and Oct. 4.

Brooks Pentecostal Church, in Brooks, has at least 17 cases of COVID-19 among its worshippers, the health agency said. The news of the church outbreak came as Maine reported 29 new cases of COVID-19 statewide on Sunday and no additional deaths.

Videos of services that the church posted to Facebook indicate that on more than one occasion worshippers have gathered closely together without masks. Contact tracing is underway, and the Maine CDC asked potential contacts of infected people to cooperate.

Close contacts can help limit potential spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 by answering calls, providing complete information, and quarantining when advised to do so, the agency said in a news release late Saturday.

Maines cumulative cases rose to 5,939 on Sunday, a net increase of 26 cases since Saturday. The official reported number of new cases, 29, is higher than the difference in daily totals because the Maine CDC revises its numbers of cumulative total cases based on how many probable cases later test negative, and on the results of contact tracing investigations.

One hundred forty-six people have died with COVID-19 in Maine, and 5,145 have recovered from the disease. Maine had 648 active cases on Sunday.

The CDC is advising anyone who spent time at Brooks Pentecostal Church or its affiliated school since Oct. 2 to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19, which include cough, fever, shortness of breath, fatigue and body aches, among others.

Anyone who attended a fellowship rally that the congregation hosted between Oct. 2 and Oct. 4 could have been exposed to the virus and should take precautions, the CDC said.

Some of the church cases were accounted for in new reported cases on Saturday, the agency said, but not all. The CDCs statewide case counts on Sunday may also include some from Brooks Pentecostal Waldo County saw 10 new cases in Sundays count.

The churchs website and social media pages didnt display information about the outbreak on Sunday morning. Videos of services posted to Facebook indicate that the church has been conducting in-person worship since at least September, when one video showed congregantsgathering close together in the pews, without masks.

The church posted multiple videos Oct. 4, some of which appear to show social distancing in the pews, while other videos from that date feature close, maskless gatherings.

The University of Maine System reported three new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, for a total of six active cases across its eight schools. All three cases were detected at the University of Maine at Augusta, which now has five active cases. The University of Maine in Orono has one active case.

County by county in Maine since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 832 COVID-19 cases in Androscoggin, 56 in Aroostook, 2,425 in Cumberland, 73 in Franklin, 56 in Hancock, 289 in Kennebec, 59 in Knox, 53 in Lincoln, 157 in Oxford, 273 in Penobscot, 10 in Piscataquis, 77 in Sagadahoc, 127 in Somerset, 112 in Waldo, 20 in Washington, and 1,317 in York.

By age, 12.8 percent of patients were under 20, while 16.4 percent were in their 20s, 15.3 percent were in their 30s, 13.9 percent were in their 40s, 16.1 percent were in their 50s, 11.5 percent were in their 60s, 7.2 percent were in their 70s and 6.8 percent were in their 80s.

Women are still the majority of cases, at just over 51 percent.

Effective Oct. 1, the Maine CDC says it will no longer update hospital capacity data on weekends. On Friday, Maines hospitals had 11 patients with COVID-19, of whom five were in intensive care and one was on a ventilator. The state had 93 intensive care unit beds available of a total 382, and 252 ventilators available of 318. There were also 444 alternative ventilators.

Around the world on Sunday, there were 39.7 million known cases of COVID-19 and 1.1 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States had 8.1 million cases and more than 219,000 deaths.

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Coronavirus outbreak detected at Waldo County church - Portland Press Herald - Press Herald