U.S. Death Toll Tops 200K As States Hit Record Numbers: BLOG

ACROSS AMERICA — More than 200,000 coronavirus deaths have been reported in the United States, multiple news outlets have reported.

As Americans prepare to start a new week, states throughout the Southwest and Midwest are still reporting record confirmed cases of coronavirus. The return of students to school and college campuses is partly to blame for the spikes, officials say.

Cases are rising sharply in North Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming, according to a New York Times database.

The spike in cases is particularly dramatic in Wisconsin, where the number of infections being reported each day is now more than double what it was two weeks ago. More than 2,500 infections were reported in Wisconsin on Friday, the most ever in the state in one day.

About 87 percent of the record number of cases reported in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, were among people 10 to 29 years old, according to The La Crosse Tribune.

Cases have also risen sharply in Utah, which reported more than 1,000 infections in a single day for the first time last week.

Meanwhile, health experts are keeping their eye on another weekend motorcycle rally, this time at a resort in Missouri.

Thousands of people were expected to flock to the 14th annual BikeFest Lake of the Ozarks this weekend, which kicked off Wednesday and concludes Sunday. The event came a month after a larger motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, led to a surge of cases in multiple states.

Missouri, where the rally is being held, is reporting an average of more than 1,600 cases daily, its highest total of the pandemic.

In other news, early voting for the upcoming election has kicked off, and despite the ongoing pandemic, voters are lining up en masse to cast their votes before Nov. 3.

Alongside "I voted early" stickers, voting booths are being stocked with hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes.

By this weekend, as many as 20 states were expected to start some form of general election voting by mailing out absentee ballots or allowing people to cast them in person.

RELATED: VA Voters Form Long Lines On 1st Day Of In-Person Absentee Voting

Minneapolis Opens Early Voting Center Friday

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back against a Catholic archbishop's criticism of coronavirus restrictions, urging him to "follow science" instead of advocating for larger worship gatherings.

Pelosi's admonishment was directed at Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, who recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he claimed the constitutionally protected right to worship was being squandered by the American government.

“With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this,” Pelosi said.

RELATED: Blind Faith Meets Coronavirus Science In Potentially Deadly Clash

Finally, a majority of Americans are concerned that a vaccine against the new coronavirus is being developed too quickly, according to a new study.

The study from Pew Research Center found that 78 percent of U.S. adults have concerns that the vaccine would be too hastily reviewed without fully establishing its safety and efficacy.

At least 946 new coronavirus deaths and 48,875 new cases were reported in the United States on Friday, according to a New York Times database. Over the past week, there have been an average of 40,283 cases per day, a decrease of 3 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

A separate New York Times survey shows at least 88,000 cases and at least 60 deaths at more than 1,190 American colleges and universities since the pandemic began. Most of those deaths were reported in the spring and involved college employees, not students.

As of Sunday, 28 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

More than 6.799 million people in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Sunday evening, and over 199,500 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on current coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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