The number of new cases reported in Florida alone over the past week outstrips the total count in most European nations. You know, the ones with “socialized” medicine. But it is not just Florida, Arizona, Texas, and South Carolina. States including Oklahoma, Alabama, and Nevada are reporting record numbers of new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.
We are now averaging more than 60,000 new confirmed cases per day nationwide pushing the total count since the pandemic began past 3.5 million. Because cloth face coverings can also allow states to more safely ease stay-at-home orders and business closings, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a JAMA Live webcast Tuesday, “If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.”
“Like herd immunity with vaccines, the more individuals wear cloth face coverings in public places where they may be close together, the more the entire community is protected,” Redfield wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association. President Trump wore a mask in public for the first time last weekend, nearly three months after the CDC issued guidance recommending the use of face coverings when social distancing isn’t possible.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to Washington. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.