June 17, 2020
By Andrew Joseph
The U.S. is now confronting what public health experts (click here) have been warning about but many in the public had not absorbed: the coronavirus pandemic will be with us for many months, and lapses in vigilance will lead to more sickness and death.
The country as a whole is tacking on about 20,000 new Covid-19 cases to its 2.1 million infection tally each day, a clip that’s been steady for weeks, according to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker. But cases are surging in about half of states, some of which dodged major outbreaks in the spring as the Northeast and other pockets like New Orleans became inundated. The local outbreaks are leading to increasing hospitalizations in Arizona, Texas, Alabama, and the Carolinas — raising concerns about capacity when the original rallying cry of “flatten the curve” was meant to prevent overwhelming health care systems.
Experts had envisioned localized ups and downs as the U.S. epidemic dragged on. But the new bursts of cases have not galvanized a commitment to rein in the spread and steer those rises into downturns. Instead, there is fading attention in Washington, and many Americans seem inured by the steady stream of 800 daily Covid-19 deaths and desperate to return to work and daily life....
