Dr. Anthony Fauci is advising the world to get used to wearing masks if we want to get back to anything approaching normal. In an essay he co-authored for the Journal of the American Medical Association, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor writes, in part, “As countries around the world seek to safely reopen businesses, schools, and other facets of society, mask use in the community to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2…is and will remain critical. Return to normalcy will require the widespread acceptance and adoption of mask wearing and other inexpensive and effective interventions as part of the COVID-19 prevention toolbox.”
Speaking Monday at a Yahoo Finance event, Fauci also described the current spike in COVID-19 cases as “an elongated — and an exacerbation of — the original first wave” of infections. Fauci noted that even though some states and U.S. regions managed to reduce their infection numbers by mandating mask use, business closures and quarantines, many others didn’t and continue not to. “Now as we’re getting into the cold weather, we came back up again to the worst that we’ve ever had, which was over 80,000 per day,” he said of the current case increase, adding that it’s “kind of semantics” whether you wish to describe the infections as coming in waves. “You want to call it the third wave or extended first wave. No matter how you look at it, it’s not good news,” Fauci said.
According to the latest ABC News analysis, 38 states are reporting increasing rates of COVID-19 positivity and 35 are reporting an increase in hospitalizations. According to the Covid Tracking Project, there are currently over 43,000 Americans hospitalized with the coronavirus, with the overall number of U.S. cases, hospitalizations and daily deaths trending upward.
COVID-19 numbers
Here’s the latest data on COVID-19 coronavirus infections and deaths.
Latest reported numbers globally per Johns Hopkins University
Global diagnosed cases: 43,571,756
Global deaths: 1,160,421. The United States has the most deaths of any single country, with 225,739.
Number of countries/regions: at least 189
Total patients recovered globally: 29,234,996
Latest reported numbers in the United States per Johns Hopkins University
There are at least 8,705,127 reported cases in 50 states + the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. This is more than in any other country.
U.S. deaths: at least 225,739. New York State has the greatest number of reported deaths in the U.S., with 33,424.
U.S. total patients recovered: 3,460,455
U.S. total people tested: 133,750,060
The greatest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is in California, with 911,235 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 39.51 million. That ranks third in the world after Maharashtra, India, which has 1,648,665- reported cases, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has 1,092,843 reported cases.