Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pandemic Will Look More Like A Wave That Rolls On And On Under Force Of Its Own Power
By now we know 鈥 contrary to false predictions 鈥 that the novel coronavirus will be with us for a rather long time. 鈥淓xactly how long remains to be seen,鈥 said Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard鈥檚 T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a matter of managing it over months to a couple of years. It鈥檚 not a matter of getting past the peak, as some people seem to believe.鈥 (Roberts, 5/8)
For all the talk of a second wave of coronavirus cases hitting the United States this fall, one consideration is often lost: The country is still in the throes of the first wave of this pandemic. Even as roughly half of states start to peek out from under their lockdowns, the United States confirmed more than 25,000 new Covid-19 infections nearly every day in April, a clip that does not seem to be dropping in May, according to STAT鈥檚 Covid-19 Tracker. More than 1,000 people have died each day since April 2. On some days, including both Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the toll topped 2,000. (Joseph, 5/7)
U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 75,000 deaths on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, after the White House shelved a step-by-step guide prepared by health officials to help states safely reopen. Deaths in the United States, the epicenter of the global pandemic, have averaged 2,000 a day since mid-April despite efforts to slow the outbreak. The death toll is higher than any fatalities from the seasonal flu going back to 1967 and represents more U.S. deaths than during the first 10 years of the AIDS epidemic, from 1981 to 1991. (Shumaker, 5/7)
Coronavirus-related restrictions are set to loosen further in parts of the U.S., while some countries are ramping up reopening plans, as the global death toll from the pandemic nears 270,000. The total number of cases world-wide rose to nearly 3.85 million Friday, with about a third of those in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll, the highest in the world, stood at more than 75,000, according to Johns Hopkins. (Craymer, 5/8)
