Here’s what’s happening with COVID-19 in the United States and around the world on Thursday.
The latest:
- Could Canada avoid a second wave of COVID-19?
- Newborn triplets in Mexico have COVID-19, their parents do not.
- COVID-19 surges among young Americans, endangering older adults.
The United States is dealing with an uptick in coronavirus cases in several states, prompting governors across the country to take a range of measures from mandating masks to imposing fresh restrictions on incoming travellers.
In Florida, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Wednesday at a virtual press conference that “surge teams” will be sent this weekend to areas where doctors are noticing an increase in new COVID-19 infections.
About 100 people will go into such hot spots as Little Havana and Homestead, an agricultural area with vegetable farms and nurseries. The teams will be knocking on doors and handing out kits with masks and hand sanitizers.
Gimenez said officials are noticing an increase in cases among farm workers and will be offering hotel rooms to those who are ill and live in small homes with several people so they don’t infect others. He said the county still has available beds, but certain hospitals are out of ICU beds and have had to transfer patients to other centres.
In Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak said the state will begin mandating the use of face coverings in public places in an effort to stem a rise in coronavirus cases four weeks after casinos, restaurants and other businesses started reopening.
Nevada has reported more than 14,300 coronavirus cases and 494 deaths from COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
The governor said Nevada residents must make face coverings “a routine part of our daily life” in order to keep businesses open and people safe.
Nevada joins several states, including California, Washington and North Carolina, in mandating face coverings.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, said that he will withhold $2.5 billion US in the upcoming state budget to penalize counties that fail to comply with state mandates on wearing masks, testing and other measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 cases and decrease hospitalizations.
The money is intended to help local governments pay for services needed because of the pandemic. But it’s contingent upon counties following emergency orders to enforce the safety measures as they gradually reopen the economy.
Gov. Jay Inslee said on Wednesday that Washington was mistakenly included on a list of states from which travellers to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut would need to go into quarantine for 14 days because of COVID-19 concerns.
Inslee said people from Washington state won’t be subject to the restrictions announced earlier by three governors from the northeast. The quarantine applies to people coming from states with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents on a seven-day average, or with a 10 per cent or higher positive rate over seven days.
Washington state’s recent positive test rate was about six per cent.
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As of early Thursday morning, there were more than 9.4 million reported coronavirus cases worldwide, with almost 483,000 deaths, according to a tracking database maintained by U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. accounted for more than 2.3 million of the reported cases and almost 122,000 of the reported deaths.
According to the university, the U.S. was trailed by:
- Brazil, with more than 1.1 million reported cases and more than 53,000 reported deaths.
- Russia, with more than 61