Category: Covid-19

Donald Trump has said he believes the coronavirus will just disappear, as the US recorded 52,000 new cases on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins figures, a new all-time daily high.

Eight states had reported new single-day highs of freshly diagnosed cases on Tuesday, when the national daily total for new cases sat at just over 44,000, a record until the new figure emerged. The spike followed a warning by the public health expert Dr Anthony Fauci that the US is going in the wrong direction and infections could more than double, to reach 100,000 cases a day.

By Thursday morning, infections were rising in up to 40 states, and 14 states had reported overnight experiencing record daily highs. About 40% of the US is now changing course on reopening.

In an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday, Trump was asked whether he really believes, as he has stated previously, that the virus will simply disappear.

I do. I do, he said. Yeah sure. At some point. And I think were going to have a vaccine very soon too.

Trump added: Were headed back in a very strong fashion And I think were going to be very good with the coronavirus,. I think that at some point thats going to sort of just disappear. I hope.

Trump has faced fierce criticism for downplaying the risks of the virus, and for his refusal to promote simple safety measures such as wearing a mask. Asked about this on Wednesday, he said he thinks masks are good but said he does not believe making masks mandatory across the country was necessary.

Officials in Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas announced single-day-high case numbers for Tuesday. The Covid Tracking Project said that the USs seven-day average for new daily cases has doubled since 13 June, and that hospitalizations jumped by the highest number since 21 April.

The European Union confirmed on Tuesday it would bar Americans from non-essential travel.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, excoriated Trump for his continued defense of the administrations slow and chaotic response to the outbreak, saying at a press briefing: The buck stops on the presidents desk.

Cuomo said: He was in denial. He has been denying what every health expert in America has been saying. Come clean with the American people. At least have the courage to admit what everybody else already knows: you were wrong.

Cuomo went on to implore states to reject the presidents rhetoric and listen to the science, making a play on Trumps former time as a reality TV host.

Denying reality does not defeat reality. He has lived in denial, and he has been denying the scientific facts since day one, he said. Reality wins and reality won, and now the country is suffering because of the president.

A number of states have been forced to roll back reopening efforts. In California, the governor ordered the closure of all recently reopened bars on Wednesday, and halted indoor operations of restaurants, movie theaters, museums and zoos across the majority of the state following a surge in coronavirus cases.

Arizonas governor, Doug Ducey, abruptly ordered bars, gyms, movie theaters and water parks to shut down this week, as the state became one of the worst hit in the US.

In Texas, elective surgeries in some counties were abandoned, as the state grapples with more than 6,500 people hospitalized from Covid-19.

Meanwhile, several Texas bar owners filed a $10m federal lawsuit against state governor Greg Abbott, in an attempt to void his executive order shutting down bars for a second time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the new details on the extent of the crisis emerged, Trump launched a series of attacks on Joe Biden, CNN, the New York Times, US senator Elizabeth Warren and MSNBC.

In tweets, Trump said that Biden was corrupt, suggested again that people damaging federal statues and monuments could spend more than 10 years in prison, and again used the racist term Pocahontas as he criticized a plan by Warren to rename US military bases named after Confederate figures. Warren has claimed to have Native American ancestry.

Amid his frenzy of internet use, Trump also retweeted a post from himself, made a day earlier, which read: THE LONE WARRIOR! and lauded the conservative channel Fox News for having bested its rivals in TV ratings, adding: Thank you President Trump.

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US reports daily case record of 52,000 after Trump says Covid-19 will 'disappear' - The Guardian

Two U.S. research groups have reported finding nearly 300 cases of an alarming apparent side effect of Covid-19 in children, a condition called multisystem inflammation syndrome, or MIS-C. While researchers have previously reported on the condition, the papers mark the first attempt to measure how frequently the side effect occurs and how it affects children who develop it.

The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describe children who develop severe inflammation affecting multiple organ systems after having had Covid-19, sometimes between two and four weeks after the infection. The majority of the children were previously healthy.

In one of the studies, led by researchers at Boston Childrens Hospital, 80% of the children who developed the condition required intensive care, 20% required mechanical ventilation, and four children, or 2%, died. In the second study, from researchers from New York state, a similar percentage of 99 children who developed the syndrome required ICU care and two children died. In both studies, many of the children developed cardiovascular and clotting problems and many had gastrointestinal symptoms. A high proportion also had skin rashes.

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Ours were really sick kids, said Adrienne Randolph, an ICU physician at Boston Childrens Hospital and senior author on one of the papers, which was based on reports from 26 states.

Manish Patel, from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Covid-19 response team, said the message to parents is they should be on the lookout for fever and rash in children who have recently had Covid-19.

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I think being a little vigilant is important, said Patel, who is an author on Randolphs paper. Fever, rash and I think especially in the setting of areas where you have a lot of coronavirus infections, SARS-CoV-2 infections have a lower threshold for seeking care, I would say.

On the whole, children appear to contract SARS-CoV-2 less often than adults and have a milder course of disease when they do.

But in late April, doctors in London alerted the world to the possibility that some children who had Covid-19 appeared to go on to develop something that looked like Kawasakis disease, an inflammatory condition that can attack the heart. KD, as it is called, is generally seen in children under the age of 5. Shortly thereafter, doctors in New York began to report cases as well.

In mid-May, the CDC asked doctors across the country to be on the lookout for cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.

The nearly 300 cases identified in these two studies share some similarities with KD, but there are also differences. Few of the children are under the age of 5. The average age of children in the larger study was 8; 42% of the children in the New York cohort were aged 6 to 12.

Another difference: While KD disproportionately affects children of Asian descent, MIS-C cases in the New York cohort were of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, the researchers reported.

Among our patients, predominantly from the New York Metropolitan Region, 40% were Black and 36% were Hispanic. This may be a reflection of the well-documented elevated incidence of SARS CoV-2 infection among black and Hispanic communities, they wrote.

The New York group estimated that the majority of MIS-C cases occurred about one month after the peak of Covid-19 cases in the state. They estimated that between March 1 and May 10, two of every 100,000 people under the 21 years of age who had laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 virus developed MIS-C in the state. The infection rate in people under the age of 21 years was 322 in 100,000 over that period.

An editorial written by Michael Levin, from the department of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, said there have been roughly 1,000 pediatric cases of the condition reported worldwide to date. He suggested more are likely going unrecorded, because case definitions require evidence of prior Covid-19 infection.

There is concern that children meeting current diagnostic criteria for MIS-C are the tip of the iceberg, and a bigger problem may be lurking below the waterline, Levin wrote.

This article was updated to include information from the New York state study.

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Studies find nearly 300 kids with inflammatory condition tied to Covid-19 - STAT

Story Highlights

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As coronavirus infections are spiking in U.S. states that previously had not been hard-hit, a new high of 65% of U.S. adults say the coronavirus situation is getting worse. The percentage of Americans who believe the situation is getting worse has increased from 48% the preceding week, and from 37% two weeks prior.

Line graph. A new high of 65% of US adults say the coronavirus situation in the U.S. is getting worse. 23% say it is getting better.

The latest results, from June 22-28, are based on Gallup's online COVID-19 tracking survey, which interviews weekly random samples from Gallup's probability-based panel. Last week, governors in many states paused or rolled back plans to ease restrictions on economic activity as states in the South and West dealt with a surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.

Gallup first asked Americans in early April to say whether they thought the coronavirus situation was getting better or worse. At that time, 56% said it was getting worse and 28% better, the most negative assessment prior to the latest reading. From late April through early June, there were several weeks in which more Americans said the situation was getting better than getting worse.

Today, there is widespread agreement among Americans in all parts of the country that the situation is getting worse. Between 62% and 68% of those living in the four major regions of the U.S. say it is worsening. These rates represent heightened concern over the prior week in all four regions, including increases of 13 percentage points for those living in the South and Midwest, 19 points for those in the West and 22 points for those in the Northeast.

Additionally, all major party groups are more inclined than they were the previous week to see the situation as getting worse, including an eight-point increase among Republicans, 18 points among independents and 15 points among Democrats. But the partisan gap remains vast, as 90% of Democrats, 63% of independents and 28% of Republicans believe the situation is getting worse. A majority of Republicans, 54%, say the situation is getting better.

Americans' greater pessimism is also apparent in the 74% who expect the level of disruption to travel, school, work and public events in the U.S. to persist through the end of this year (37%) or beyond that (37%). This represents a 10-point increase from the prior week in the percentage of U.S. adults who think the coronavirus situation will last at least until the end of the year. In early May, less than half of Americans expected the situation to last that long.

Line graph. Nearly three quarters of Americans expect the disruption brought about the coronavirus will last until the end of the year or longer than that. Nineteen percent believe it will last a few more months and 7% say it will last a few more weeks.

Ninety percent of Democrats, 75% of independents and 48% of Republicans expect disruptions to continue through the end of the year or longer.

The percentage of Americans who say they are very or somewhat worried about getting the coronavirus has increased from 48% to 56%, a level not seen since late April. It is also one point off the trend's record high of 57%, registered in the initial measurement the week of April 6-12.

A majority of 56% of Americans are worried about getting the coronavirus.

Worry about getting the virus has increased most among Northeastern residents (up 19 points, to 60%) and Western residents (up 15 points, to 58%), with little change among those living in the Midwest or South.

Democrats (74%) remain far more worried about getting COVID-19 than independents (50%) or Republicans (30%) -- but Republicans show the greatest increase in worry compared with the prior week, up from 22%.

The poll also finds a significant increase in the percentage of Americans who say the better advice for healthy people is to stay home as much as possible. Seventy-two percent now hold this view, up from 66% the previous week. This is the first time since the initial measurement of this question in late March -- during the initial surge in U.S. cases -- that there has been a meaningful increase in the percentage who say it is better for healthy people to stay home. Still, it remains lower than the 91% who advocated that course of action in March.

Twenty-eight percent now hold the opposing view -- that it is better for healthy people to lead their normal lives as much as possible to avoid interruptions to work and business.

Line graph. Seventy-two percent of Americans, up from 66%, a week ago, say the better advice for healthy people is to stay home as much as possible. Twenty eight percent say the better advice is to for healthy people to lead their normal lives as much as possible.

Relatedly, fewer Americans now (25%) than the prior week (32%) say they would resume their normal day-to-day activities "right now" if it were up to them. About the same percentage, 26%, now say they would resume their normal activities after the number of cases in their state declines significantly. This leaves about half of Americans indicating they would be more cautious about returning to normal -- with 30% saying they would do so when there are no new cases in their state, and 19% waiting for the development of a vaccine.

Americans may dispute whether the recent increase in new daily coronavirus cases represents a continuation of the first wave or the start of a second wave of infections -- but there is a growing public consensus that the situation is getting worse. An increase in new daily cases was not unexpected as business restrictions were eased, but the size of the increase in states like California, Texas, Florida and Arizona has caused governors there to rethink the pace of loosening those restrictions, if not reverse course on some of them.

The recent developments are a grim reminder that even as the number of new daily cases declined in recent months, the virus never went away. Consequently, Americans are increasingly likely to think the disruptions to daily life will persist in the U.S. through at least the end of this year.

Learn more about how the Gallup Panel works.

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Assessment of US COVID-19 Situation Increasingly Bleak - Gallup

A retrospective study of 57 adult COVID-19 patients published yesterday in Respiratory Research found significant lung impairment in the recovery phase, particularly in patients with severe disease.

Researchers conducted serial assessments of patients 30 days after they were released from the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai, China. They found that, of the 40 non-severe and 17 severe cases, 31 patients (54.4%) still had abnormal findings on chest computed tomography (CT). The rate of abnormalities was much higher in severe (16 or 17, or 94.1%) than in mild illness (15/ 31, 37.5%).

Forty-three (75.4%) of the 57 patients had abnormal pulmonary function tests. The percent of patients who had results less than 80% of predicted values was 10.5% for forced vital capacity (FVC, amount of air forcibly exhaled after taking a deep breath), 8.7% for forced expiratory volume (FEV1, amount of air forcibly expelled in 1 second), 43.8% for FEV1/FVC ratio, 12.3% for total lung capacity (TLC), and 52.6% for diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO) (amount of oxygen traveling from lungs to the blood).

Twenty-eight (49.1%) and 13 patients (22.8%) had maximum inspiratory pressure and maximum expiratory pressure values less than 80% of predicted values an indication of weakened respiratory muscles.

Twenty-six patients (86.7%) had mildly impaired DLCO, while the other 4 (13.3%) had moderate impairment. There was a significant difference in impaired DLCO between the two groups, accounting for 42.5% of patients with mild disease and 75.6% of those with severe illness.

Patients with severe COVID-19 had more DLCO impairment than those with less severe disease (75.6% vs 42.5%,P=0.019), as well as higher lung total severity scores (TSS) and total airway resistance and significantly lower percentage of predicted TLC and 6-minute walking distance (6MWD). The 6MWD of patients with severe illness was only 88.4% of predicted values, significantly lower than in those with mild illness.

Most patients in the severe group (70.6%) were men and were older than patients with milder disease. No significant correlation between TSS and pulmonary function was evident at follow-up.

Mean ratio of partial pressure of oxygen (Pa02) to fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) was significantly lower in patients with milder illness than in those with severe disease. Pa02 reflects how well oxygen is able to travel from the lungs to the blood, while FiO2 is the percentage of oxygen inhaled.

Patients with severe COVID-19 had higher serum lactate dehydrogenase (indicating tissue damage), C-reactive protein peaks (indicating inflammation), and lower counts of infection-fighting lymphocytes than those with milder illnesses. No significant differences were found in values of white blood cells, creatinine kinase (measuring muscle inflammation), lactic acid peaks (measures of levels of oxygen in the muscles), or length of hospital stay between the two groups.

At 30-day follow-up, 6 of 57 patients (10.5%) reported a mild cough, 4 (7.0%) had shortness of breath, and 3 (5.3%) said they sometimes wheezed.

Of 57 patients, 46 (80.7%) had a history of direct contact with Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of China's coronavirus outbreak, while 9 (15.7%) had a history of smoking. Mean patient age was 47 years, and 31 patients were women.

Twenty-one patients (36.8%) had underlying illnesses, the most common of which were high blood pressure (11 patients), diabetes (4), cancer (3), and cardiovascular disease (3). All these conditions were either believed cured or well controlled at testing. None of the patients had a chronic respiratory disease.

The authors said they were surprised that the lung total severity score was not significantly correlated with FEV1, FVC, or DLCO, meaning that impaired lung function did not necessarily reflect severity of illness or changes on CT.

"We speculate that it was because most severe patients used glucocorticoid during hospitalization, suggesting that corticosteroids may improve the prognosis of patients with COVID-19," they wrote, cautioning that small sample size and selection bias may have affected the results. Corticosteroids are given to reduce inflammation.

The researchers called for future studies to include longer follow-up and exercise cardiopulmonary function testing.

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Study finds lung impairment in recovering COVID-19 patients - CIDRAP

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin gestures toward Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, as they appear before a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on oversight of the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve pandemic response, on Tuesday in Washington. Bill O'Leary/AP hide caption

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin gestures toward Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, as they appear before a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on oversight of the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve pandemic response, on Tuesday in Washington.

House members unanimously passed an extension of the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program, aimed at helping small businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic. The voice vote came a day after the Senate approved the measure.

The PPP had expired Tuesday at midnight. If President Trump signs the extension, the program will operate through Aug. 8.

The program was created as part of the original $3 trillion package of economic pandemic relief measures that passed Congress in March. The forgivable loans, doled out by the Small Business Administration, are meant to help small businesses keep employees on the payroll despite lockdowns and a general downturn in business as a result of the coronavirus.

There was a scramble to claim the first round, amounting to $349 billion, which was exhausted in just 13 days. A second round of $310 billion has not been fully spent.

On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested the remaining $140 billion in loans under the program could be repurposed to aid restaurants, hotels and other industries hit hardest by the pandemic.

The extension passed by Congress is aimed at keeping the spigot open while lawmakers mull reworking the program.

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House Follows Senate In Passing Extension Of COVID-19 Business Loans - NPR

Association between mobility patterns and COVID-19 transmission in the USA: a mathematical modelling study  The Lancet

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Association between mobility patterns and COVID-19 transmission in the USA: a mathematical modelling study - The Lancet

PUNTA GORDA

Health officials are trying to track down passengers on a flight from Punta Gorda to Albany, New York, after another passenger tested positive for COVID-19.

Officials are in the process of notifying people who may have been exposed to the virus in order to prevent them from spreading it even more.

Diane Scales of Cape Coral wasnt on the New York-bound flight, but expressed similar concerns as her Allegiant flight sat at the gate with mechanical issues.

There was no social distancing at all. We were touching each other elbow to elbow, she said.

It was absolutely full with 10 empty seats. They boarded us with no air conditioning, no moving air.

She chose to get off and not reboard. The uneasy feeling lingers with her today after she learned an Allegiant passenger contracted COVID-19.

Pamella Seay with the Charlotte County Airport Authority said we all have to do our part.

If you dont feel well, dont fly, she said.

Warren County (NY) health department officials issued an alert on Thursday, saying three of their residents contracted the virus while vacationing in Florida. They then boarded their flights home one on one flight and two on another and tested positive for COVID-19 days later.

Those flights from Florida to Albany included Allegiant Airlines flight 1505, which flew from Punta Gorda on June 25 (one person), and Allegiant Airlines flight 754, which flew from St. Petersburg/Clearwater on June 26 (two people).

One of the three Warren County residents who tested positive arrived home on June 25, before the state travel advisory for those who had been to Florida and 15 other states took effect.

The three new Florida-related cases were considered mild as of Thursday and were the only new cases confirmed among Warren County residents since June 24. The person whose test result was reported June 24 was cleared as recovered as of Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with the state and local health departments in New York to contact exposed passengers and crew.

With an airline, its very easy because you know exactly who was there. If youre in the grocery store, its not quite as easy, Seay said.

The infected passenger believes he or she contracted COVID-19 while in Florida and didnt start showing symptoms until arriving home. That person immediately self-quarantined.

The news makes travelers like Scales think twice about their next flight.

Unless I had to fly right now, I just would not, she said.

Its unclear if that traveler wore a mask on the flight. Allegiants mask mandate goes into effect Thursday.

Anyone who was on one of those flights is asked to contact their county Department of Health as soon as possible as they may have been exposed to the virus.

Warren County officials said Thursday they had a 30-day period of next to nothing in terms of new cases, but Wednesday, the three positive cases were reported.

These three new positive cases should serve as a wake-up call to anybody who isnt taking this virus seriously. New York State and the Capital Region have improved, but the threat remains and all the progress weve made can be undermined. Its no great mystery that Florida and many other states have been struggling with spikes in this virus. If you havent already gotten smart about your vacation decisions, then get smart. Youre putting yourself and your community at risk, said Ryan Moore, county administrator with Warren County.

CDC statement:

Under current federal regulations, pilots must report all illnesses and deaths to CDC before arriving to a U.S. destination. According to CDC disease protocols, if a sick traveler is considered a risk to the publics health, CDC works with local and state health departments and international public health agencies to contact exposed passengers and crew.

Potentially exposed persons will be contacted using the information provided by travelers to the airline. That is why it is important travelers give airlines current contact information when booking tickets to ensure they can be notified if they were exposed to a sick traveler on a flight.

See the original post here:

Passengers exposed to COVID-19 on flight from Punta Gorda to Albany - Wink News

Read: What happens when kids dont see their peers for months

If kids are probably low-risk (in terms of both getting sick and transmitting), that doesnt necessarily mean states should go ahead and reopen schools. Thats because schools do not contain only children. This is not Lord of the Flies. The adults at schools may be at risk from interacting with kids, but also from interacting with one another, and with parents, and with other adults as they travel to and from work.

We have some information from abroad. France, Germany, Denmark, and other countries have reopened schools. Sweden has had schools open the whole time. Oddly, one of the most compelling pieces of evidence is provided by what we havent seen: much in the way of large-scale outbreaks linked to schools. Some cases, yesbut not super-spreader events like the ones documented all over the world at bars and meatpacking plants.

Beyond what we havent seen, some early information on adults at school is encouraging. In Denmark, some preliminary data suggest that teachers are not an especially high-risk group. A recent report out of Sweden looks at risks of exposure to COVID-19 by occupational group, and notes that school staff are not more likely than other occupations to contract the disease. Preschool and high-school teachers are actually less likely to get COVID-19. The highest-risk group here is driversof taxis and buses in particular.

An exception is Israel, where the school-reopening process has been up and down. Israel opened schools in May, but subsequently closed a number of them temporarily after detecting cases. The country had one large outbreak tied to a school. Perhaps Israel is faring less well than European countries because it opened with fewer social-distancing measures. But even in Israel, the total count of cases tied to schools since they reopened stands at about 300a very small share of the countrys students, teachers, and staff.

Read: The school reopeners think America is forgetting about kids

The above does not amount to airtight evidenceIve gleaned this information from a close reading of news reports, which is not how data gathering should work. I should not be trying to answer the question What is going on in schools that reopened? by Googling around; I resorted to that method because of the absence of a publicly available data set derived from a universal school-based testing regime. Some countries are collecting good data: In Germany, at least some schools are testing kids and teachers twice a week. This is great, but whatever Germany has found, it hasnt yet shared with the public.

If countries with open schools simply reported the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases per school each weekif anythat would do wonders. In the U.S., schools are closed but some child-care centers and camps are open. Local governments should be collecting data from these sources. I started doing thisin an unscientific and nonrandom waysimply out of frustration that no one else was. This lack of information-gathering perhaps shouldnt be surprising, as the overall pandemic response in the U.S. has been worse than elsewhere; we have fallen down on testing, contact tracing, and everything else.

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Parents Cant Wait Around Forever - The Atlantic

Atlanta The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) in collaboration with the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is confirming SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in a pet dog. This is only the second dog known to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.

The 6-year-old mixed breed dog developed sudden onset of neurological illness which progressed rapidly over the course of a couple of days, and was humanely euthanized. The owners of the dog recently tested positive for COVID-19, but the dog did not have any evidence of respiratory disease. Out of an abundance of caution,a SARS-CoV-2 test was performed on the dog. The presumptive positive result was confirmed by the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratory. While the dog did test positive for SARS-CoV-2, the progressive neurological illness was caused by another condition.

SARS-CoV-2 testing was also performed on a second dog in the household with no signs of acute illness; results are pending.

While little is known about SARS-CoV-2 infection in animals, they are not thought to be a source of infection for humans. People who test positive for COVID-19 should take precautions if they have pets in the household.

For more information on COVID-19 and animals please visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html.

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Dog in Georgia Tests Positive for Virus that Causes COVID-19 - Georgia.gov

The thing is, Covid-19s resurgence was utterly predictable and predicted. When Donald Trump declared that we would transition to greatness which is to say, rush to reopen the economy despite a still-rampant pandemic epidemiologists warned that this could set off a new wave of infections. They were right.

And economists warned that while relaxing social distancing would lead to a brief period of job growth, these gains would be short-lived, that premature reopening would be self-defeating even in economic terms. They were also right.

Dont be fooled by the big jobs number in Thursdays employment report a number that still left us down almost 15 million jobs from February. The report was a snapshot of the economy during the reference period, basically the second week of June. So its telling us what was happening before the Covid-19 surge became apparent.

We dont have official data for what has happened since then, but a variety of real-time indicators suggest that the recovery has stalled or even gone backward. Indeed, things started falling apart even before states began reversing some of their previous moves to reopen. Fear of infection will do that: Many people will avoid going out whatever their governors may say.

As a result, unemployment, still in double digits, probably wont get much better for a long time.

Now, there isnt a one-to-one correspondence between jobs and the spread of the pandemic. If we had all worn masks and avoided stupid policies like reopening bars and resuming large indoor gatherings, we probably could have had substantial job gains without surging infections. But we didnt, largely because Trump and Republican governors refused to take sensible actions (and in many cases prevented mayors and other local officials from acting sensibly on their own).

Nor can we simply hit the reset button. Activities we could have safely resumed two months ago, when infection rates were low, arent safe to continue given todays much higher Covid-19 prevalence. That is, were in worse shape, even economically, than we would have been if Trump and his allies had taken the pandemic seriously early on.

The really frightening aspect about where we are is that Trump and his people dont seem to have learned anything from their coronavirus debacle. On Wednesday Wednesday! Trump insisted, as he has at every stage of the pandemic, that the coronavirus will sort of just disappear.

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Under Trump, Covid-19 Spreads While the Economy Stalls - The New York Times