Official Count of New COVID Cases Spikes as Cold Hits the North Midwest

Oct. 5, 2020 (EIRNS) —There was a spike in new U.S. COVID-19 cases on Oct. 3, setting new one-day records in Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, and Wisconsin; and these states, along with Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Wyoming, all had record increases for the week. Colder weather, driving many activities indoors, is thought to be a major contributing factor.

Nationwide, new cases remain about 15% above mid-September. The 7-day running average is now above 42,000/day. In a sense, this is largely accounted for by the rise in testing, which averaged almost a million/day from Sept. 30-Oct. 2. The positivity rate backs this up, remaining right around 4.6-4.7%. So, this suggests that a similar amount of infection activity was out there in mid-September, but now we’re having more success in locating it. Still, since the universities reopened, the declines in cases and positivity, from late July to early September, have halted.

On a seven-day running average, 23 states still remain under 5% positivity, with 27 plus Puerto Rico still above 5%, 9 of which are above 15%. The leaders remain South Dakota, 23.4%; Idaho, 22.5%; Wisconsin, 20.8%; Iowa, 17.6%; and Missouri, 17.1%. Admittedly, Puerto Rico and Mississippi are presently showing percentages above this, but Puerto Rico’s numbers are skewed, due to a lack of tests, and Mississippi’s present “43%” is a result of some reporting issues. They are probably somewhere around the 20% level.

Last week, 6.5 million rapid antigen tests went out in the first week of the RADx crash program deployment. Another 10 million are scheduled to go out this week.