A: I am sorry for your loss. Your question is a great one that points out a common misconception.
Temperature checks are not, and have never been, a good measure for preventing COVID-19. It is one screening metric that can indicate a viral illness, but it is in no way useful as the only measure.
As we saw from the recent outbreak associated with the White House, screening procedures, even those that involve rapid testing, are never intended to replace the more important prevention measures of wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
As COVID-19 numbers rise across the country, nursing homes are preparing for another wave of cases to hit their facilities.
When nationwide case counts started climbing in late September, so too did cases in nursing homes, according to an analysis of data from CMS and Johns Hopkins by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living. Nursing homes cases had been falling since a peak of 10,125 cases the week of July 26. Deaths were highest at the beginning of the pandemic when there were 3,222 COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes the week of May 31; however, death data for nursing homes isn't available for the weeks prior.
"The No. 1 factor in keeping COVID out of our nursing homes so we can protect our vulnerable population is reducing the level of the virus in the surrounding community," said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of AHCA/NCAL. "While the support we have received from Congress, the Administration and other public health agencies have helped our facilities fight this battle, we could still see another wave of COVID cases caused by the sheer volume of rising cases in communities across the U.S. given the asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of this virus."
In the U.S., there were 252,929 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 143,848 suspected cases and 59,626 deaths in nursing homes, according to the latest available CMS data.
"Right now, we're not in an outbreak but we don't know when that outbreak will occur," said Janet Snipes, executive director of Holly Heights Nursing Center a 90-resident independent nursing home in Denver. "We're very concerned."
Holly Heights doesn't have any residents with COVID-19 right now but has been completing surveillance testing of staff after two asymptomatic employees tested positive at the end of September.
"We're very worried about it because we know as asymptomic people present, it's critical that we have the [personal protective equipment] we need," Snipes said. "We hardly had any PPE when we had our first outbreak, and it was devastating to residents and staff."
While Holly Heights has more PPE than it did when the pandemic started, it doesn't have different sizes of N95 masks, doesn't have fit testing for them and only has a few face shields, Snipes said. The facility has been stockpililing what PPE it can in preparation for an outbreak and the coming flu season but hopes the federal government will provide more testing, staff, resources and PPE.
The AHCA/NCAL and other long-term care advocates are calling on Congress to provide additional funding to better defend against COVID-19. "Without adequate funding and resources, the U.S. will repeat the same mistakes made during the initial outbreak last spring and the major spike over the summer. We need Congress to prioritize our vulnerable seniors and their caregivers in nursing homes and assisted living communities, by passing another COVID funding package before they leave town for the elections," Parkinson said.
Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, which represents not-for-profit nursing homes, said a new surge of COVID-19, coupled with the flu, could create greater shortages of personal protective equipment, testing supplies and trained staff.
"Americans are under increasing threat from a perfect storm of surging rates of COVID-19, the start of flu season and the failure of federal leaders to take needed action," said Smith Sloan said. "How will we ensure that older Americans and their care providers are not left out in the cold?"
It took all summer and the first three weeks of fall for daily coronavirus infection test rates in Connecticut to climb back over 2% positive.
But it took only seven days until Tuesday to surpass 3%, prompting a worried appeal from Gov. Ned Lamont for public vigilance.
Were all going to have to be a little more disciplined, said the governor, who interrupted his own press conference on small business assistance to preview distressing infection statistics set to be released later Tuesday.
The rising infection levels also mean Connecticut wont be shifting to a slightly less-stringent travel quarantine program, the governor said.
And Lamont also said hes sticking with more lenient limits on business-related gatherings because he believes careless social gatherings are the chief culprits behind Connecticuts surging COVID-19 issues.
Its those small, informal interactions taking place now that are driving up numbers, the governor said, adding he understands residents are facing pandemic fatigue and have grown tired of the social distancing and other spread-control measures forced upon them since mid-March. It will be over a lot faster if you wear the mask and keep the distancing.
Lamont, who appeared at 1:30 at Lillys soul food restaurant in Windsor to announce a grant program, did not provide full numbers, which are expected later Tuesday.
But he said the daily infection rate for Monday which involves the share of coronavirus tests completed that day that turned up positive reached 3%.
Connecticut hadnt recorded a daily rate this high since June 5, when 4.4% or 358 of the 8,160 test results logged that day were positive.
And the latest report also means Connecticuts weekly infection rate a much more important COVID-19 metric for most healthcare experts has reached the 2% mark for the first time since early June.
For most of the summer, both daily and weekly infection rates hovered close to or less than 1%.
Lamont expressed concerns on Oct. 13, though, one day after Connecticut cleared the 2% mark for daily infections for the first time since mid-June.
The governor noted that the weekly rate at that time was about 1.5% and remained the lowest in the nation.
Five days earlier, on Oct. 8, Lamont went forward with the third phase of his plan to reopen business activity since widespread closures were ordered in March and April.
The latest round included permitting theaters and concert halls to reopen on a limited basis and increasing the indoor capacity of restaurants and event venues. Business leaders have said this is essential as New England weather turns crisp and customers might be wary about selecting outdoor seating.
Lamont stuck by the third phase of his reopening Tuesday, despite clearing the 3% infection level, but cautioned he would reconsider things if the rate approaches or clears 5%.
Lamont did recently empower 11 communities with high local infection rates most of which are located in eastern Connecticut to reverse the third phase of business reopening. To date, only Windham has chosen to do so.
The surging infection levels did prompt the governor Tuesday to reverse a plan hed announced just one day earlier, specifying when people arriving in Connecticut from other states might have to quarantine for 14 days.
Since July, Lamont has been requiring residents returning from vacation or visitors arriving here from other states to quarantine for 14 days if the state theyd left behind faced high infection levels according to either of two standards:
But Connecticut already is close to failing the second standard, so Lamont proposed a modestly easier test on Monday: Quarantines were to be required for visitors from a state that failed the 10 positive tests per 100,000 and also had a weekly infection rate in excess of 5%.
On Tuesday, though, Lamont said that after consulting with governors in New York and New Jersey whove been collaborating with Connecticut on this travel quarantine policy the original, more stringent, standards will remain in place.
Connecticut is not an island unto itself, Lamont said, noting that infection rates are escalating in the Northeast and elsewhere. This is happening around our country, and this is happening around our region.
The governor added that the rising infection level underscored the need for more relief to small businesses, which may have to struggle with limited customers and various restrictions through the winter and spring until a coronavirus vaccine has been developed and circulated.
The administration proposed a $50 million grant program for businesses with fewer than 20 employees or with an annualized payroll $1.5 million or less.
Businesses could receive a one-time grant of up to $5,000.
Small businesses are truly are heart and soul of this economy, said Department of Economic and Community Development Deputy Commissioner Glendowlyn Thames, who added that Connecticut has an estimated 50,000 businesses that fit this criteria, employing about 350,000 people statewide.
Thames said the goal is to provide assistance to roughly 10,000 businesses.
The program would be funded with federal coronavirus relief assistance. The state would begin accepting applications the week of Nov. 9 and provide grants by Dec. 30, Thames said.
Lamont launched a business loan program in late March using state funds. Originally budgeted at $25 million, it was doubled to $50 million but still fell far short of the demand for relief.
Despite doubling the programs budget, the administration closed the application period within two days after receiving requests for relief that quadrupled the available $50 million.
More than three dozen coronavirus cases have been linked to a church in Maine that held a fellowship rally earlier this month.
The state's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday that 17 cases were linked to Brooks Pentecostal Church in Waldo County.
By Tuesday, that number had climbed to 42, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said at a news briefing.
The agency said in a press release on Saturday that the church in Brooks, a town of about 1,100 people 40 miles northeast of Augusta, held a fellowship rally between Oct. 2 and Oct. 4.
Shah said that about 100 to 150 people, including members from other churches, attended the rally. Masks were available but not routinely used, he said.
The church also held in-person services where people did not regularly wear a mask.
"Based on what we know right now, we expect the number of cases associated with this outbreak to increase, perhaps significantly," Shah said.
Out of the 42 cases, seven were confirmed at the Lighthouse Christian Academy, a school affiliated with the church. Other cases include several at four different schools in the area and one at a long-term care facility in Waldo County.
"Anyone can cause an outbreak," Gov. Janet Mills said at the news briefing, urging residents to continue practicing safety measures.
Officials advised that anyone who attended the event or spent any time at Lighthouse Christian Academy should monitor for symptoms of Covid-19, and if they show symptoms contact a doctor.
Efforts to reach the church were not immediately successful on Tuesday morning.
Waldo County has had 124 cumulative cases of coronavirus and 14 deaths, according to the state's COVID-19 dashboard. Statewide, there have been just under 6,000 cases and 146 deaths.
This isn't the first time a coronavirus outbreak has been linked to a church in Maine. At least 10 cases have been tied to Calvary Baptist Church after its pastor officiated an indoor wedding that has been labeled as a superspreader event that caused over a hundred infections and at least eight deaths.
Minyvonne Burkeis a breaking news reporter for NBC News.
Researchers in the U.K. will begin the first challenge study to deliberately expose volunteers to the novel coronavirus early next year, according to a statement. And the first participants in this trial will not receive an experimental vaccine before being exposed the virus.
In typical vaccine trials, volunteers are given an experimental vaccine and then followed for months until a subset of them are naturally exposed to the virus.But by exposing every participant in a trial to SARS-CoV-2, challenge studies can shave months, if not years, off of the typical vaccine trial timeline. Such trials can be risky, as COVID-19 doesn't have a cure if things go wrong, Live Science previously reported. Still, challenge studies aren't new and they have been an important tool for learning more about diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.
Related: Coronavirus live updates
The new human challenge study will be led by researchers from the Imperial College London in partnership with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, clinical company hVIVO and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, according to the statement. The U.K. government will invest $43.4 million (33.6 million pounds) in the study, according to NPR.
In the study, the researchers will recruit healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 to 30 with no history of COVID-19 and no underlying health conditions or known risk factors for COVID-19 such as heart disease, diabetes or obesity. If given approval, the study will begin in January 2021 in London's Royal Free Hospital, where volunteers will be quarantined and given a lab-grown SARS-CoV-2 strain, according to NPR.
In the first part of this study, researchers will try to quantify the smallest amount of virus that a person would need to be infected with in order to develop COVID-19, according to the statement. Study authors will start by exposing participants to a tiny number of virus particles and then slowly increase the viral dose.
Following this stage, the researchers will test a number of promising experimental vaccines to compare them and see how effectively they work to prevent COVID-19; they also plan to study potential treatments and the immune response, according to the statement. The study designers haven't yet announced which vaccine candidates they will test.
"Deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen is never undertaken lightly," Peter Openshaw, study co-investigator and director of the Human Challenge Consortiumat Imperial College London, said in the statement. "However, such studies are enormously informative about a disease, even one so well studied as COVID-19."
More than 38,000 people from around the world have already expressed interest in participating in such challenge studies, according to the "1Day Sooner" website, which is keeping a tally of the number of people willing to participate.
Before any volunteers are enrolled, the human challenge study will be reviewed by an ethics committee and approved by a regulatory agency, according to the statement.
Originally published on Live Science.
People wait in the shade while in line to get coronavirus tests in Revere, Mass. David L. Ryan/Boston Globe via Getty Images hide caption
People wait in the shade while in line to get coronavirus tests in Revere, Mass.
People are getting the results of coronavirus tests in the U.S. faster than they were in the spring, but testing still takes far too long to help with effective disease control measures such as contact tracing and quarantining, according to the results of a large national survey.
The survey, which is conducted monthly by a consortium of researchers from Northeastern, Northwestern, Harvard and Rutgers universities, also finds that Hispanics and African Americans are waiting about a day longer than whites on average, underscoring yet another way the pandemic is hitting minorities harder.
The researchers also found that a disturbingly high proportion of those testing positive almost half are never contacted by a health worker to determine who they may have infected, a crucial step for preventing outbreaks.
"That is how you limit the spread of the disease and limit the number of people who have to socially isolate and avoid lockdowns," says Dr. David Lazer of Northeastern University, who led the team conducting the survey. "The good news is there has been some improvement. The bad news is everything is still taking far too long."
The researchers surveyed 52,329 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in July, August and September as part of a series of ongoing surveys the team has been conducting since April.
Of those surveyed, 12,911 got a coronavirus test, including 8,843 whose sample was collected with a nasal swab.
Among that group, the average wait time for results was 2.7 days in September, down from four days in April, the researchers found. In addition, the proportion of people getting their results back within 24 hours increased from 23% to 37%.
While that's an improvement, the turnaround time is still "too slow in most cases to support a successful strategy of contact tracing," and most people are still waiting far too long, the researchers wrote.
"Despite decreased average wait times, a substantial proportion of Americans still endure long waits," they added.
They noted that in September, 42% of those tested had to wait at least three days before getting their results.
The average black respondent waited 4.4 days to receive results and the average Hispanic respondent waited 4.1 days. In comparison, white and Asian American respondents respectively waited an average of 3.5 and 3.6 days, the researchers found.
"We know that African Americans and Hispanics are underserved medically," Lazer says. "This is reflective of that larger reality. It's terrible."
To keep outbreaks from occurring, people who are infected need to be contacted quickly, ideally within 24-36 hours to make sure they don't infect other people and find out who they may have come into contact with so those people can be told to quarantine and get tested.
In fact, only 56% of those who tested positive were contacted by a health worker to get contact tracing information, the researchers found.
White respondents and black respondents are roughly equally likely to report contact tracing 61% and 56% respectively.
"Delivering results is just one part of the testing process," the researchers note. "Many face difficulties accessing tests in the first place."
It's not just delays in test results that are stymieing public health efforts. Many respondents report obstacles in getting tested to start with. Thirty-five percent of people in the August and September surveys had to wait at least three days between deciding to get a test and actually getting the test, the researchers found.
The average person who got tested in the August and September surveys was tested within 2.5 days and waited 3.7 days for the results of the test. That means it took a total of 6.2 days between deciding on a test and receiving results, the researchers wrote.
"So even with the improvement in results, people are waiting about week. And by that point much of the harm that could occur in spreading through that person's social network has already occurred," Lazer says. "What you want to do is cut that to within 24 hours to 36 hours."
The reasons people have trouble getting tested varied. One-third of people did not know how or where to get a test, 23% said the testing site was too far away, and 14% said the test was too expensive.
The delays between deciding to get a test and getting final results were worst for Black respondents. The average white person surveyed waited 5.7 days for results after seeking a test. The average Asian American, Hispanic or Black respondent waited 6.1, 6.9, and 7.4 days respectively.
From late July through September, students from more than 2,400 colleges and universities went back to campus to participate in what has ultimately become an American experiment in how institutions of higher education can operate during a pandemic.
It has been a few weeks since the most dramatic effects of college reopening have been seen, and in the time since, research has started to show that inviting students back to college probably led to a rise in Covid-19 cases in the US.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that young adults ages 18 to 22 saw a 55% increase nationally in Covid-19 cases in August.
The picture that emerges in US education is a patchwork one, both of how universities are dealing with the crisis and how their students are reacting to it.
Data from the College Crisis Initiative, a research project out of Davidson College, and the Chronicle of Higher Education indicate that just over 300 campuses are closed for the fall semester. Most schools are doing some type of hybrid learning, holding some or most classes online and offering select classes in-person, meaning they welcomed at least some of their students back to campus at the end of the summer.
Another study, released in September and currently up for peer review, was conducted by a group of epidemiologists, economics and higher education experts who used GPS tracking data from cellphones to look at movements of people at the end of the summer.
The GPS data was paired with reopening plans of schools and the Covid-19 infection rate in surrounding counties. The researchers found that campus reopenings led to an estimated 3,200 additional Covid-19 cases a day, primarily from students who traveled away from their home towns to go back to school.
Ana Bento, an infectious disease expert with Indiana Universitys School of Public Health and co-author of the study, said that the influx of cases was largely driven by the increase in flow of individuals from other parts of the country to campus.
Schools that invited students back for in-person classes saw a larger flow of students than schools that kept everything online, Bento said, even if students were coming back to campus to live off-campus or be with friends for the latter scenario.
Bento said that the rise in cases from college reopenings was mostly seen at the beginning of the school year when students were just coming on to campus. Now, schools have hit a plateau in the total number of cases after administrators implemented policies that probably averted more cases.
Researchers with the College Crisis Initiative, which has been tracking Covid-19 on college campuses since the end of summer, have noticed three common factors among schools that have had relative success at keeping the virus at bay: control of foot traffic to and from campus, a comprehensive testing regime, and a strong sense of community that encourages students to follow guidelines.
Danya Rangachar, a student at Davidson who is one of the researchers with the College Crisis Initiative, said that, by nature, small liberal arts colleges seem to have an easier time managing the virus because they can hit those markers more easily.
For example, Davidson, which is located in Davidson, North Carolina, and has a student population of just under 2,000, has had no major outbreaks of the virus on campus. Rangachar, a senior at the college, said that probably attests to the school being a small community.
Every student gets tested once a week. Staff and faculty get tested as well. Because were a smaller school, students are more likely to adhere to community guidelines, Rangachar said.
But testing alone cannot ensure a school can prevent outbreaks on campus, but it has been essential in helping schools monitor the spread of the virus.
The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, which has a student population of about 8,000, saw 147 positive Covid-19 cases just as classes were starting in August. The school shifted to online-only classes for two weeks, asking students to shelter-in-place, and has since reopened with mandatory surveillance testing of students living on campus, meaning the school tests students at random to gauge asymptomatic spread of the virus on campus.
Though the school has seen a small handful of positive tests on some days, students are comforted that the schools daily dashboard of cases can keep them abreast of the viruss spread on campus.
Kathleen Meyer, a junior at Notre Dame, said that she checks the dashboard every day and has been relieved daily numbers on campus have been relatively low since the semester started. People are still taking it super seriously. No one wants to get sick and have to go into quarantine, Meyer said.
A recent analysis from NPR, using data from the College Crisis Initiative on 1,400 schools that have reopened their campuses, showed schools like Davidson and Notre Dame that have mandatory testing are actually in the minority. A quarter of schools are doing surveillance testing like Notre Dame while only 6% are doing mandatory testing of all students, like Davidson. Most schools are only testing students who are showing symptoms, which does not allow a school to track asymptomatic cases of the virus.
It has been particularly hard for schools to monitor students who are living off-campus. The University of South Carolina, which has a student population of about 34,000 and has had almost 2,500 cases since August, has resorted to giving free swag to students who are chosen at random for testing but have the option to opt out.
Gabriella Daniels, a senior at the University of South Carolina, said that some students opt to get tested at clinics outside the university so a positive case does not go toward the universitys total case count.
I know plenty of people who have had coronavirus and they were just quarantined in their apartment, Daniels said.
Daniels said that coronavirus was particularly rampant at the beginning of the semester, pretty much everyone I knew at one point or another had coronavirus or had to quarantine, she said. Students on campus are still adhering to mask and social distancing guidelines, but off campus, it seems like the university really has no control.
Its become a normal thing Ive heard plenty of people be like, I already had it so its not like I can get it again. I have antibodies for a while. Thats just been everyones attitude, Daniel said. Everyones like, I see my friends getting it, and theyre perfectly fine and able to get out to bars, so whats the difference if I get it?
The casual attitude around Covid-19 is not shared by all college students. Trinity Cross said that she feels she takes the virus more seriously than her peers, turning down invitations to parties that she feels are too dangerous and ensures that she is around a group of friends who are regularly tested. After her cousin died of Covid-19 over the summer, the risk of contracting the virus looms large.
I can lose a friend at any moment I have chronic asthma, and I have seen death [from the virus] very closely, Cross said. I avoid certain outings with friends. I cant risk it its life or death really.
Her school, the University of Wisconsin Madison, halted in-person classes for two weeks after cases spiked to over a thousand on the campus of more than 40,000. Cross said she was disappointed with the number of students she sees still walking around campus without a mask even though the school requires masks in school buildings.
On days when shes walking around outside on campus, she counts the number of people without masks. On a recent Wednesday, she counted 20 people.
I thought they were going to send us all back home [at the beginning of the school year], and I was just preparing for that because I knew that people werent taking this as seriously as they should, Cross said. Right now were kind of just waiting for the next big thing to happen.
Pedestrians wearing protective mask pass in front of the Fargo Theatre in downtown Fargo, North Dakota, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Colder temperatures are arriving in the Northern Hemisphere, and an insidious rise in new coronavirus cases in the U.S. and Europe is underway.
For months, health officials have warned against this possibility, and as these trends begin to materialize, countries are weighing whether to impose stricter measures to contain the virus' spread.
"Our worry has been that we would see a fall wave, that we'd see a big resurgence in the fall," said Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at theJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "And that has really been something I think all of us in the public health community have been worried about for a while."
In the U.S., coronavirus cases were growing by 5% or more in 38 states, as of Friday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University that uses a weekly average to smooth out the reporting. The nation is averaging roughly 55,000 new coronavirus cases every day, a more than 16% increase compared with a week ago.
"It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures, and again I emphasize without necessarily shutting down the country," White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told Johns Hopkins University during a recorded Q&A on Thursday.
Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has warned the daily number of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. remains dangerously high, especially as the forthcoming flu season threatens to complicate the nation's response to the pandemic.
When the U.S. descended from its first peak in April, where cases were largely driven by New York and other states in the Northeast, the number of new coronavirus cases "got stuck" around 20,000 per day, Fauci said. Ideally, the U.S. would've reported less than 10,000 cases every day, he said.
Then cases resurged in America's Sun Belt over the summer as states tried to reopen their economies. The number of daily new Covid-19 cases swelled to a high of nearly 70,000 cases a day before subsiding once again. However, new cases have since hovered between 40,000 to 50,000 cases a day.
"You can't enter into the cool months of the fall and the cold months of the winter with a high community infection baseline," Fauci said. He added that the positivity rate, or the percentage of tests that are positive, is "going in the wrong direction" in more than 30 states.
"I'm pretty glum at the moment because it does look as though in the majority of states there's an increasing number of cases," Dr. William Schaffner, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University, said. "There's a growing sense of coronavirus fatigue out there. People really want to get back to the old normal."
Schaffner said he expects the U.S. to experience a "substantial third wave" of infections and that it will be further complicated this winter by the spread of seasonal influenza, which causes many similar symptoms to that of the coronavirus.
People will spend more time indoors and likely fail to follow public health guidance as the colder temperatures arrive, which creates a greater risk for the cornoavirus' spread compared with outdoor activities, Schaffner said.
"During the summer, people went indoors for air conditioning, but they did spend more of their time outdoors. Nonetheless, it spread as people became lax in their attention to social distancing and mask wearing," he said. "As far as I can tell, that's growing."
Unlike previous outbreaks across the U.S., the coronavirus is now widely circulating through many of America's more rural communities.
North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin continue to report the highest number of cases per 100,000 residents in the country, according to Johns Hopkins data.
The outbreak has turned for the worst in some states. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers activated an alternative care facility that opened to overflow coronavirus patients this week at the Wisconsin State Fair Park.
In North Dakota, where cases have grown nearly 34% compared with a week ago, local officials are concerned that some hospitals may not have the staffing required to treat severely ill coronavirus patients.
"We have had a nursing shortage prior to the pandemic, and so the additional workload and additional hospital capacity that's come with Covid has impacted and affected staffing," said Renae Moch, director of Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health.
Moch said that at times, some residents of more rural parts of North Dakota have had to travel hours across state lines to Montana and South Dakota to seek care because hospital beds in Bismarck, the state's capital, were full.
"For us, this is the worst that it's been," Moch said. "I think especially with the flu season coming up and the possible impacts of that as we move into the fall ... we need to get a handle on this before it gets any worse, and I'm sure it can get worse."
Dr. Allison Suttle, the chief medical officer at Sanford Health, which has hospitals located in North Dakota and South Dakota, said they've seen more Covid-19 patients and have added beds to help treat people.
Because the current surge of coronavirus patients is happening now versus earlier in the nation's response to the pandemic, Sanford Health has had time to prepare and stock up on needed supplies, Suttle said, adding that she's confident they can treat patients who seek medical care.
However, people in more rural states delayed their routine health-care visits in the spring after they were told to stay home as the coronavirus swept through the coasts. Now, those people are coming into the hospitals in worse condition amid the growing number of Covid-19 patients, Suttle said.
"What we're seeing as the hospitalizations of Covid increase in direct correlation to the number of cases increasing in our communities, we're also seeing sicker patients that have delayed care in March and April that are now coming in with problems," she said. "They require more intense care, longer hospital stays, so that all compounds."
The United States is not the only country reporting climbing new cases.
When adjusting for population, the number of new coronavirus infections in Europe has now overtaken the United States, with Europe reporting 187 new cases per million people, based on a seven-day average, compared with 162 new cases per million people in the U.S. as of Thursday.
Europe which in CNBC's analysis of Hopkins data includes the 27 European Union countries plus the United Kingdom is reporting an average of roughly 97,000 new cases per day, up 44% from one week ago.
The World Health Organization warned on Friday that Europe's outbreak is "concerning" as the number of intensive care unit beds in some regions decline. Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead, said the organization knows "of a number of cities across Europe where ICU capacity will be reached in the coming weeks."
The virus' resurgence prompted France to declare a public health state of emergency. The U.K. placed tighter restrictions on gathering and indoor business operations in London, and threatened to take more action nationwide if necessary. Germany also imposed new measures to curb the virus' spread.
Meanwhile, Canada is experiencing a second wave of coronavirus infectionsas the provinces of Quebec and Ontario report the bulk of the country's Covid-19 death toll, Carissa Etienne, WHO's regional director for the Americas, said on Wednesday.
CNBC's Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.
There were no deaths reported this morning in the West Piedmont Health District because of COVID-19, but hospitals got a little more crowded. There were 24 new cases of the virus, and a net of 5 new hospitalizations. The "net" is because Henry County's total was reduced by 1. Franklin County continued its surge with 16 new cases, and Patrick County has 4. Henry County and Martinsville had 2 apiece. Franklin County also had 3 new hospitalizations. Patrick County had 2 and Martinsville 1. That's now 2,694 cases and 281 hospitalizations in the district. The death county remains at 84. A case on staff at Laurel Park Middle School was discovered Monday, prompting a letter to parents about the actions being taken. Martinsville Mayor Kathy Lawson said that Halloween will go on as usual. That is contrary to the CDC and even local statutes for safety. Virginia Tech officials say they plan to have in-person classes in spring semester. There have now beenmore than 40 million cases of coronavirus recordedworldwide. As the numbers tick up, vaccine trials are evolving. The UK government signed a contractfor the first human challenge studies, in which healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with the coronavirus in a controlled setting, and some receive an experimental vaccine. That's a different process than a typical Phase 3 trial, in which volunteers are given the vaccine with the assumption that at least some of them will be exposed to the virus in their daily lives. In the U.S.Johnson & Johnson and the FDA are still mumon why the pharmaceutical giant paused its coronavirus vaccine trial last week. That concerns health experts who point out that, when you're asking millions of people to roll up their sleeves and trust you, transparency is key.That stimulus deadline proposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosiis coming up today, and Republican lawmakers are doubtful she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will come up with something everyone will agree to.President Trump used a phone call and a campaign speech to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci as an "idiot" and to decry coverage of the pandemic. Just 16% of respondents in a new AP/NORC poll say they trust coronavirus information from President Donald Trump a great deal or quite a bit, down from 23% in April. And 64% now say they trust Trump only a little or not at all on COVID-19. Only social media, at 72%, is less trusted. The Virginia Department of Health reportsthis morning there have been 167,754 cases and 3,485 deaths statewide -- up by 28 from Monday. Some 11,955 people have been hospitalized. Henry County has had 1,250 cases, with 133 hospitalizations and 31 deaths. Martinsville has had 460 cases, with 64 hospitalizations and 23 deaths. Patrick County has had 306 cases including 55 hospitalizations and 26 deaths. Franklin County has had 678 cases, 29 hospitalizations and 4 deaths. Danville has reported 1,130 cases (39 deaths), and Pittsylvania County has had 1,227 (17 deaths).Johns Hopkins University's real-time mapshowed 40,464,761 cases worldwide and 1,119,369 deaths. In the U.S. there have been 8,215,605 cases and 220,134 deaths because of COVID-19.
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The study is still awaiting final regulatory approval. If given the green light, a study in which human volunteers will be infected with the coronavirus will begin in January at a biosecure unit at London's Royal Free Hospital. Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images via Getty Images hide caption
The study is still awaiting final regulatory approval. If given the green light, a study in which human volunteers will be infected with the coronavirus will begin in January at a biosecure unit at London's Royal Free Hospital.
Updated at 9:00 a.m. ET
Researchers in Britain are preparing to start a controversial COVID-19 "human challenge" study in which dozens of healthy volunteers will be exposed to live coronavirus in an effort to speed up vaccine development.
The Human Challenge Programme will be conducted by Imperial College London, which said Tuesday in a statement that it would be working in cooperation with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, and hVIVO, a clinical company that has worked on viral human challenge models.
The U.K. government is preparing to invest $43.4 million (33.6 million pounds) in the study, which is the first of its kind involving the coronavirus.
The plan is to recruit healthy people between the ages of 18 and 30 with no prior history of COVID-19 symptoms and no known risk factors for the disease. Researchers would inoculate them with a candidate vaccine, then test its effectiveness by deliberately exposing them to live coronavirus.
The study is still awaiting final regulatory approval. If it is given the green light, it will begin in January at a biosecure unit at London's Royal Free Hospital. Volunteers will be quarantined in the facility and receive a laboratory-grown SARS-CoV-2 strain as part of the trial. They will be monitored around the clock for a few weeks.
Such studies are controversial because they raise ethical concerns. However, proponents say they can speed up vaccine development and, ultimately, save lives.
"No study is completely risk free, but the Human Challenge Program partners will be working hard to ensure we make the risks as low as we possibly can," lead researcher Dr. Chris Chiu from Imperial College London said in the statement.
"The UK's experience and expertise in human challenge trials as well as in wider COVID-19 science will help us tackle the pandemic, benefiting people in the UK and worldwide," he said.
"Participants in the initial study will be carefully selected to exclude anyone with a characteristic that has been shown to increase the severity of COVID-19 infection," hVIVO said in a statement.
Many vaccines have been tested in fast-tracked human challenge studies, ranging from seasonal flu to cholera and typhoid. The World Health Organization has issued guidelines for such research.
Belgium is looking into conducting similar trials involving coronavirus. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is funding the development of two SARS-CoV-2 challenge strains at a lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, according to Nature, and NIAID is reportedly awaiting data from Phase III vaccine studies before making decisions on COVID-19 challenge trials.
In the first part of the U.K. study, researchers will try to determine the smallest amount of virus required for a person to develop COVID-19 and elicit an immune response. That phase is scheduled to be wrap up sometime next year.
"The proportion of participants becoming infected and the amount of virus that they subsequently shed will be tracked to better understand the course of infection," Imperial College London said in the statement.
Vaccine task force chair Kate Bingham said the research will boost knowledge of the virus and aid further research.
"There is much we can learn in terms of immunity, the length of vaccine protection, and reinfection,'' she said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.
A nonprofit group called 1Day Sooner has already attracted more than 38,500 volunteers in more than 165 countries to take part in such studies.
"I would be lying if I said there's not like an underlying worry there or fear there because this virus is less than a year old," Chris Holdsworth, 25, who is seeking a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh and says he would be willing to participate, told The Guardian. "But at the same time I just try to contextualize the risk, without trivializing it."
