As new coronavirus cases surged to a new two-month high of Tuesday mostly reported from more than two dozen western and southern states, top public health officials told US lawmakers they were concerned these could worsen.
“That’s something I’m really quite concerned about,” Anthony S Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House task force fallen into disuse, said at a congressional hearing.“A couple of days ago, there were 30,000 new infections. That’s very disturbing to me.”
The total of reported new cases shot up to 34,720 on Tuesday taking the total to 2.34 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Institute tracker, and fatalities went up by 826 to 121,225.
Texas and California reported more than 5,000 new cases each Tuesday, surpassing their recent peaks and Arizona, where President Donald Trump addressed an election rally Tuesday, reported more than 3,500 to take the total over 58,000.
New York New Jersey and Connecticut, the triangle no northeaster states that had been the epicenter of the outbreak earlier and have since improved drastically, announced Wednesday mandatory two-week quarantine for people traveling from Florida, Texas and Arizona, southern states in the grip of the new surge.
{{/usCountry}}New York New Jersey and Connecticut, the triangle no northeaster states that had been the epicenter of the outbreak earlier and have since improved drastically, announced Wednesday mandatory two-week quarantine for people traveling from Florida, Texas and Arizona, southern states in the grip of the new surge.
{{/usCountry}}Twenty-six states, all in the south and the west, reported more cases last week than the one before. Arizona has been the worst hit, with cases said to be spiraling out of control since its Republican governor ended stay-at-home restrictions last month. And participants at Trump’s rally displayed a similar disregard for social distancing and preventive measures such as masks that the president has continued to show publicly.
Fauci and Brett Giroir, a top health department official who also testified along with CDC’s Robert Redfield and FDA’s Stephen Kahn, told lawmakers the new surge of cases was due to increased community transmission. And that the next weeks will be crucial in how the country deals with them
“We have all done the best that we can do to tackle this virus and the reality is that it’s brought this nation to its knees,” Redfield told the congressional committee
All four officials denied, however, ever being told to slow-down testing as has been stated by the president, starting with his speech at the thinly attended election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma Monday. He had said he ordered for the testing to be slowed down as they only showed increase in cases.
His aides claimed the president was joking, which he has denied.
“None of us have ever been told to slow down on testing,” Fauci told lawmakers when asked. “That just is a fact.”