Some schools in the United States are considering relaxing their rules for wearing masks, but deaths nationwide have increased in recent weeks, some rural hospitals are near breaking point and the cold is setting in.
The number of new cases nationwide has been plummeting since the surge in the Delta variant peaked in mid-September. The United States averages about 73,000 new cases a day, less than half of the nearly 173,000 recorded on September 13. And the number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 has slipped by about half to 47,000 since early September.
In Florida, the Miami-Dade County mask requirement could be relaxed by the end of October if encouraging data holds. A high school outside of Boston became the first in Massachusetts to make masks optional after meeting the state’s immunization threshold. With about 95% of eligible people being vaccinated at Hopkinton High School, school officials voted to allow vaccinated students and staff not to wear masks for a three-week trial period starting. from 1er November.
Still, there are worrying indicators, including the onset of the cold, which sends people indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.
With mask requirements reduced across much of the United States, the University of Washington’s influential COVID-19 forecasting model predicts an increase in infections and hospitalizations in November.
Additionally, daily COVID-19 deaths have started to rise again after a drop that began in late September. Deaths are around 1,700 a day, up from nearly 1,500 two weeks ago.
In sparsely populated Wyoming, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, hospitals have admitted more patients than at any time during the pandemic.
“It’s like a war zone,” said Dr Mark Dowell, public health official, at a county health board regarding the situation at Wyoming Medical Center, reported the Casper Star Tribune. “The intensive care unit is overwhelmed. ”
The vast majority of patients hospitalized in Wyoming have not received the vaccine, and the state’s vaccination rate is only about 43%. Only West Virginia ranks lower.
In rural Minnesota, a man waited two days for an intensive care bed and later died. Bob Cameron, 87, had gone to his hometown hospital in Hallock with severe gastrointestinal bleeding and COVID-19. The authorities are looking for space in a larger center.
The bleeding depleted the hospital’s blood supply and police officers had to drive 200 kilometers to collect new blood units, but his condition worsened after the operation and he died on October 13, reported on Minneapolis Star Tribune.
“We can’t say for sure, of course, that if he had arrived in an intensive care bed earlier he would have survived, but we just think he would have,” the granddaughter said. by Cameron, Janna Curry.
In a three-week period this month, rural Minnesota hospitals treated more patients with COVID-19 than those in the state’s main urban center, Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
Pressure on Colorado hospitals forced a second county to reinstate indoor mask requirements last week, reported the Denver Post. Nearly 80% of COVID-19 patients in Colorado hospitals are unvaccinated.