CBS News has obtained some notable data from the White House coronavirus task force on the alarming surge of covid cases across the country.
This week the United States hit the grim milestone of 11 million total cases, and the number of deaths has topped 248,000. Daily case numbers and hospitalizations are at alarming levels — the COVID Tracking Project said Monday a record 73,000 people were hospitalized.
Our daily update is published. States reported 1.5M tests, 149K cases, and 581 deaths. A record 73k people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. Texas did not report testing data today. pic.twitter.com/brjIHCylb3
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) November 17, 2020
The reports obtained by CBS News say, “There is now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration. Current mitigation efforts are inadequate and must be increased to flatten the curve to sustain the health system for both COVID and non-COVID emergencies.”
NEW: @CBSNews has obtained several state reports by the WH Coronavirus Task Force, which warn:
“There is now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration.” pic.twitter.com/xLfT8psR8N
— Sara Cook (@saraecook) November 17, 2020
Task force members like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx have sounded the alarm about the surge in cases across the country and pushing for stronger mitigation efforts. There’s been a lot of encouraging news about vaccine breakthroughs in the past week, but the pandemic could get worse during the winter months and Fauci said this week, “We need some fundamental public health measures that everyone should be adhering to, not a disjointed, ‘One state says one thing, the other state says another thing.’”
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