COVID-19 Update

We have 32 times as many dead Americans now as we had 3 months ago.

Dead Americans:

• APR 1st:    4,081
• MAY 1st:  63,871
• JUN 1st: 106,220
• JUL 1st:  130,134

Top 20 States

WaPo:

Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease specialist, warned Tuesday that the United States could soon have 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day “if this does not turn around” — a surge that would be more than twice as many as the record so far and three times as many as the original peak this spring.

Fauci said that recent images of Americans gathering in bars or other crowds foreshadow a greater spike in infections that “is going to be very disturbing … We’re going to continue to be in a lot of trouble, and there’s going to be a lot of hurt if that does not go away.”

Fauci gave his bleak assessment in response to questions during his latest appearance on Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on the state of the pandemic as new infections are rampant across much of the South and West, with hospitalizations escalating in a dozen states.

He and other top health officials acknowledge that the nation’s public health system was ill prepared for a major infectious-disease outbreak, as the Republican chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee called on President Trump to start heeding federal guidance to wear a mask in public.

“Unfortunately, this simple lifesaving practice has become part of the political debate that says this: If you’re for Trump, you don’t wear a mask. If you’re against Trump, you do,” said the chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.). “That’s why I’ve suggested that the president occasionally wear a mask, even though in most case it’s not necessary for him to do so. The president has plenty of admirers. They would follow his lead.”