"A second day of six-figure case counts pushed the total number of infections reported in the United States to nearly 9.6 million on Thursday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. At least 234,000 fatalities have been reported to date.
No region of the country is being spared from the onslaught: The 20 states reporting record single-day increases on Thursday span New England, the Midwest, the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest. Those witnessing the most dramatic increases over the past week include Maine, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota and Nebraska."
The hardest hit states of North Dakota and South Dakota are seeing hospitalizations for the virus rise to crisis proportions, with the despicable Trumpist Republican governors of those states defiantly refusing to order mask mandates. Both states were carried comfortably by con man demagogue and election loser Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump in the election. Said one health care official:
“There’s been this sense of people giving up,” Michael Fraser, chief executive of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told The Post. “You had state leaders looking at the election and deciding it was not worth taking bold, unpopular moves against the virus that might save lives but hurt your side politically." (our emphasis)
Trump assured his cult following at his COVID-spreader events that the virus would be forgotten on November 4. It's continuing to infect Americans at a growing rate, with deaths rising and our health care system struggling not to collapse. It was his lying and criminal negligence that brought us to this point, and, sadly, it will be the next administration's task to clean up his monumental, deadly mess.
