Tag Archives: U.S. surgeon general

Biden to hit reset on nation’s fight against COVID-19 on his first day as president

By Susan Heavey and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Wednesday will immediately reset the nation’s response to the COVID-19 crisis when he heads to the Oval Office after being sworn in to lead a country reeling from its worst public health crisis in more than a century.

As part of a first sweep of executive actions, Biden will order that all federal employees wear masks and make face coverings mandatory on federal property. He will establish a new White House office to coordinate the coronavirus response and halt the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, a process initiated by former President Donald Trump.

Biden was also poised to nominate an acting U.S. surgeon general as soon as Wednesday, a person familiar with the decision told MSNBC, following the resignation of Trump appointee Jerome Adams.

Biden’s executive actions, particularly the mask mandate, are intended to set an example for state and local officials to rein in the virus, which has hobbled the U.S. economy. The United States has reported nearly 200,000 new COVID-19 cases and 3,000 deaths per day on a seven-day rolling average, according to Reuters data. More than 123,000 Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Wednesday.

Scientists and public health experts have said face masks can help prevent the spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus, but the coverings have become a flashpoint in American life reflecting the nation’s larger political divide.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Patricia Zengerle and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, Anurag Maan in Bengaluru, Gabriella Borter in Florida; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

With U.S. hospitals overrun, surgeon general urges Americans to ‘hold on’

(Reuters) – U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Tuesday pleaded with Americans to grasp “the severity of the moment” and remain vigilant against the coronavirus pandemic, as record hospitalizations pushed healthcare professionals to the brink.

“We are almost to a vaccine. … We’ve got new remedies out there. We just need you, the American people, to hold on a little bit longer,” Adams, a White House Coronavirus Task Force member, told Fox News in an interview.

He urged people to adjust their plans ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, which has led to the busiest U.S. air travel since the early days of the pandemic in March, with millions of people flying despite the hazards of a crowded airport. U.S. health officials last week strongly recommended that Americans avoid travel for the holiday.

Global pharmaceutical companies have reported promising trial results in the development of vaccines, which could be administered to high-priority patients in December. Meanwhile, the U.S. government will begin distributing Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc’s newly authorized COVID-19 antibody combination therapy starting Tuesday.

But hospitals need immediate relief.

The United States was on pace to surpass 85,000 hospitalizations for COVID-19 on Wednesday, a record, as 30 of the 50 states reported record numbers of patients this month.

That has taxed already exhausted healthcare providers as more than 1,500 coronavirus deaths and 171,000 new cases pile up daily.

After pounding big U.S. cities in the spring, COVID-19 now has engulfed rural and small-town America. Case rates in the 12 Midwestern states are more than double that of any other region, according to the COVID Tracking Project, up more than 20 times from mid-June to mid-November.

Many Midwestern hospitals severely lack beds, equipment and clinical staff, providers say. Some are repurposing areas to accommodate COVID-19 patients or cramming multiple patients in a single room, and are asking staffers to work longer hours and more frequent shifts.

“There’s a disconnect in the community, where we’re seeing people at bars and restaurants, or planning Thanksgiving dinners,” said Dr. Kelly Cawcutt, an infectious disease physician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. As health workers, she said, “we feel kind of dejected.”

Thirty states had a record number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in November, including all 12 Midwestern states, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Michigan reported over 4,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on Monday, surpassing its previous record on April 13.

“A quarter of all of our coronavirus cases this year have occurred in the last month. … Those cases are turning into hospitalizations and deaths,” Adams warned, saying heart patients, pregnant women and others could be turned away.

“That’s the reality.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Nick Brown and Lisa Shumaker; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. surgeon general says coronavirus outbreak ‘to get bad’ this week

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. surgeon general issued his starkest warning to date on Monday about the health risk posed by the coronavirus outbreak, warning Americans that the crisis was “going to get bad” this week.

The country’s top public health official, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, sounded the alarm as nearly one-third of Americans awoke to “stay at home orders.”

As of Sunday night, states with a population totaling more than 100 million people have imposed restrictions to curtail the virus, which has infected nearly 35,000 people and killed 428 in the United States, putting the country on a track similar to those of devastated European countries such as Italy and Spain.

“This week it’s going to get bad,” Adams told NBC’s “Today” show, saying there were more people out to see Washington’s famed annual cherry blossoms than there were blossoms. “This is how the spread is occurring. Everyone needs to be taking the right steps right now: stay home.”

Trump imposed a 15-day national action plan a week ago urging Americans to follow the direction of the “stay at home” orders of state and local officials.

At the same time, he has also been far more optimistic than health experts have been about the prognosis for the outbreak while also voicing concern about the negative effect of shutting down wide swathes of the economy.

“We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” Trump tweeted in all capital letters overnight. “At the end of the 15-day period, we will make a decision as to which way we want to go.”

Also on Monday, the U.S. Federal Reserve mounted an extraordinary new array of programs to offset the disruptions to the economy caused by the outbreak, backstopping an unprecedented range of credit for households, small businesses and major employers.

CONGRESS MEETS

Congress was trying to address concerns over the economy, which is forecast to shrink as a result of emergency measures. U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans were working on an economic relief bill, aware that failure to strike a deal could trigger further heavy losses in U.S. stock markets.

The Senate was due to reconvene at noon ET (1600 GMT) to consider the bill, which Democrats argue favors corporate interests at the expense of healthcare workers, hospitals and state and local governments. Republicans in turn accused them of obstructing a badly needed stimulus in the midst of a national emergency.

Independent experts have suggested far more than 15 days will be needed to halt the spread.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on Monday called on the federal government to do more to provide personal protective equipment, noting that all states “are all out looking for the same thing” in competition with each other.”We need a lot more,” Murphy told CNN. “Anything they could do is going to make a huge difference.”Murphy reiterated his call for the federal government to collectively provide $100 billion in direct cash assistance to New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

Trump on Sunday defended his decision to hold off using his powers under the Defense Protection Act to ramp up supplies, telling reporters at a news conference that nationalizing businesses “is not a good concept.”

Murphy noted that on one day last week 15,000 New Jersey residents applied for unemployment benefits, crashing the state’s computer systems.”We need the feds to come in a big way to help us,” Murphy said. “Folks are hurting.”

The first of two U.S. military hospital ships was dispatched on Monday to boost hospital bed capacity as the number of U.S. coronavirus cases swells.

The U.S. Naval Ship Mercy departed San Diego with nearly 900 staff on board to take on non-coronavirus patients and allow local personnel to manage those on shore with the virus, the Pentagon said in statement. Trump on Sunday said the Mercy would be dispatched to Los Angeles while the USNS Comfort would go to New York.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu and Nathan Layne; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Howard Goller)