On Thursday, Americans stirred up to celebrate a Thanksgiving transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The annual Macy’s parade limited to a television live stream amid tens of thousands hospitalized. The Covid Tracking Project reported that a record 89,959 people were in care on Wednesday. Point to be noted that hospitals across the United States at capacity as Covid-19 continued to accelerate. The records continue to be broken with the country’s two biggest states, California and Texas. On Wednesday, both states have reported more new cases than at any point in the pandemic, with more than 18,000 in California and 15,000 in Texas. More than 12.7 million Americans have now contracted the virus since the pandemic struck the United States. It is noteworthy that around 2 million cases reported in the past 2 weeks alone.
Coronavirus deaths have broken records and have done so over 16 consecutive days, reaching 2,285 on Wednesday. The CDC has warned that 75,000 more Americans could die still, between Thursday’s holiday and mid-December. It would be the time when 312,000 Americans might have lost their lives to the virus. The director at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, Michael Osterholm said, “We have to understand we’re in a very dangerous place. People have to stop swapping air. It’s just that simple”. Dr. Anthony Fauci also warned and said, “What we’re doing now is going to be reflected two, three weeks from now. If in fact, you’re in a situation when you do the things that are increasing the risk, the travel, the congregate setting, not wearing masks, the chances are that you will see a surge superimposed upon a surge”.
The CDC recommended people stay at home. The CDC’s Covid-19 incident manager Dr. Henry Walker said, “It’s not a requirement. It’s a recommendation for the American public to consider. Right now, especially as we’re seeing this sort of exponential growth in cases, and the opportunity to trans-locate disease or infection from one part of the country to another, it leads to our recommendation to avoid travel at this time”. More than 50 million people were predicted to have traveled as Thursday approached, with most Americans traveling by car to be with close relatives. The president-elect Joe Biden also addressed the nation on Wednesday and said, “We have to slow the growth of this virus. We owe it to the doctors and the nurses and the frontline workers. We owe it to our fellow citizens”.