Currents News Staff
The coronavirus is known to have infected more than 6.5 million people in the United States over the past six months, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Acting Director Richard Besser called it “the worst public health crisis in our lives.”
And the next few months may be even more difficult.
“It just makes me sick to see, to know what we could have been as a nation and what we are today,” said Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine.
Health experts say in addition to COVID-19, the U.S. is facing a triple-challenge of the upcoming flu season including colder weather, which drives people indoors and increases risk of spread, and outbreaks as more students return to schools.
“We see around the globe countries successfully getting this under control and getting people back to work, and public health knows the path to get there but we’re not doing that,” says Richard Besser.
As the U.S. is currently averaging about 35,000 new COVID-19 cases per day, drug maker Pfizer is working on phase three trials for a coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CBS’s “Face the Nation” show that the drug-maker may know by the end of October if it works.
President Donald Trump says Americans are “rounding the turn” from the virus.
“Now having a vaccine is good, but we’re rounding the turn regardless, we’re rounding the turn and it’s happening, it’s happening, you’ll see,” he said.
In the meantime, people are still advised to wear masks, and to maintain social distancing.
“As we’re waiting for a vaccine we know what we can do,” says Jodie Dionne-Odom at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Other countries have done it. We should too.”