While the country has turned its attention to the election that saw president-elect Joe Biden be declared the victor over Donald Trump, the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage on and is doing so in a way that hasn’t been seen before. After reaching more than 100,000 daily cases for the first time ever last week and doing so in consecutive days, the country continued to set records in a way it wishes it wasn’t.
With the pandemic continuing to amplify since the end of March, hospitalizations reached an all-time high, with more than 60,000 reported in the U.S. on Tuesday. The previous high was set on April 15 and was surpassed by 2,024, with a number of 61,694 as of this writing. The average daily new hospitalizations has jumped to 1,661, according to the COVID Tracking Project. As Dr. Anthony Fauci and others have continued to warn for months, the winter season could be a dark time for the country. As noted by the data, hospitalizations tend to lead to an uptick in deaths after two or more weeks.
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In Wisconsin, particularly, Gov. Tony Evers said it took the state seven and a half months to get 100,000 cases but only 36 days to reach that same number on Tuesday. He estimated that at this rate, the state could see another 100,000 cases within the next 20 days. Wisconsin set records in all three categories — cases, hospitalizations and deaths — which saw more than 7,000 cases reported and 66 deaths.
.@KamalaHarris and I aren’t wasting any time. We’re ready to get COVID-19 under control so that we can reopen our businesses and schools safely, resume our lives, and put this pandemic behind us. pic.twitter.com/65C1XfR9rR
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 10, 2020
All of this comes as Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris have already begun to put together their plans for combatting the coronavirus when they step into the White House as part of the transitional process. On Monday, Biden named 12 doctors and medical experts to his COVID-19 task force. That same day, he held a conference where he addressed the rise in numbers, urging everyone that the best defense until a vaccine is readily available is wearing a mask. This speech came after Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine is 90% effective through its trials. Despite the good news of a vaccine coming and potentially as early as the end of the year, Fauci reminded everyone that it would not likely be available for all until April 2021.
