The US surpassed 4 million cases of COVID-19 Thursday as the pandemic shows no signs of easing. Already, nearly 144,000 people in the country have died from the disease.
Yesterday saw more than 70,000 new cases tallied, with a seven-day average of nearly 67,000 new cases per day, according to data collected by The COVID Tracking Project.
With the ongoing surges, hospitalizations are nearing a new record during the pandemic. There are currently 59,628 people hospitalized across the country. That’s slightly below the previous peak on April 15 of 59,940. Deaths are also on the upswing, with a seven-day average of 834 deaths a day. The last two days have seen death tolls over 1,000. Southern states and hotspots in western states, such as California, are seeing the most significant disease spread.
With the sick still streaming into hospitals, experts expect the death rate will continue to climb in the coming weeks to months. That’s how long it is before some of the patients entering the hospital now succumb to their disease.
Coming up short
Exacerbating the crisis are reports that COVID-19 testing laboratories are overwhelmed. Turnaround time for getting test results back to patients has slowed to a crawl—in some places taking weeks. This has left the uninfected needlessly waiting in extended quarantines. For those who are infected, the long-delayed test results make it impossible to trace contacts and quarantine anyone exposed before they themselves could pass on the virus.
Laboratories have access to high-throughput machines that can run thousands of tests a day. In fact, the United States is running more tests now than ever during the pandemic, reporting results of 800,000 tests Wednesday. In mid-April, the country was running just around 150,000 tests a day.
Still, labs could be running even more tests than they are now. As the AP reports, laboratories and hospitals running tests are stifled by global shortages of testing reagents and supplies—in addition to the climbing demand. For instance, Bobbi Pritt of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told the outlet that the hospital’s machines are running at just 20-percent capacity due to shortages.
Quest Diagnostics, one of the nation’s largest testing chains, told the AP that it simply can’t keep up with demand during the current surge in cases. The company said patients should expect waits of a week or longer to get results. It also recommended that doctors hold off on testing low-priority patients, such as those without symptoms or known contact with an infected person.
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