States across America reported nearly 60,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, setting yet another daily record as the pandemic tightens its grip on a country struggling to reopen. The surge has been largely fueled by states in the South and the West that eased their lockdowns early, The New York Times reported. Single-day case records were set in at least six states on Thursday: Alabama, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oregon and Texas, the Times reported. Meanwhile, two states recorded their highest death tolls for a single day: Florida recorded 120, while Tennessee recorded 22. In Texas, a record for new cases was set for the fourth consecutive day, with more than 10,900 infections reported, the newspaper said. Hospitals across the South and West are being flooded with COVID-19 patients and are having to cancel elective surgeries and discharge patients early as they try to keep beds available, the Times reported. In Florida, more than 40 intensive care units in 21 counties have hit capacity and have no beds available. In Mississippi, five of the state’s largest hospitals have already run out of ICU beds for critical patients, the Times reported. Things are also dire in Texas, the Times reported. “The hospitals are full,” said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and chief executive officer of the two-hospital public health system, Harris Health, based in Texas. “We have been…  read on >

New U.S. coronavirus cases surged across 37 states on Sunday, with worsening hotspots in the South and West also fueling new daily records for COVID-19 deaths. Florida recorded more than 15,000 new infections on Sunday, breaking the daily record for new cases once held by New York back at the beginning of the pandemic, The New York Times reported. The state also saw single-day records in the counties that include its largest cities — Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Fort Myers, West Palm Beach, Pensacola and Sarasota. Five states — Arizona, California, Florida, Mississippi and Texas — also broke records for average daily COVID-19 fatalities in the past week, the Washington Post reported. That marks a departure from the past weeks, when death rates had remained steady even as case numbers rose. Adding to the problem, long delays in testing are hampering efforts to contain future spread of the coronavirus, the Post reported. Many testing sites are struggling to provide results in five to seven days. Others are taking even longer, the newspaper reported, as outbreaks across the Sun Belt have strained labs beyond capacity. And there were signs of new trouble in regions outside current hotspots: Twenty states and Puerto Rico reported a record-high average of new infections over the past week, the Post reported. In the Midwest, cases have been trending upward in every…  read on >

A new threat has been added to the risks posed by fireworks — they can release toxic metals that can damage your lungs. These metals give fireworks their colors, according to researchers who found harmful levels of lead in two of 12 types of commercially available fireworks they tested. “While many are careful to protect themselves from injury from explosions, our results suggest that inhaling firework smoke may cause longer-term damage, a risk that has been largely ignored,” said study senior author Terry Gordon, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health in New York City. Gordon and his colleagues collected emissions from a dozen fireworks commonly used in the United States by setting them off in a lab chamber, then exposed mice and human lung cells to low doses of the particles, to mimic an average person’s daily exposure to air pollutants. Along with the lead finding, they found that particle emissions from five types of fireworks significantly increased oxidation, a chemical process in the body that can damage or even kill cells if left unchecked. Fireworks often contain titanium, strontium and copper, in addition to lead, according to the researchers. They also analyzed 14 years’ worth of air quality samples from dozens of sites across the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency throughout each year, and found that…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — As the daily toll of new coronavirus cases broke yet another record and topped 55,000 on Thursday, COVID-19 hospitalizations were also climbing across the South and West. Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Nevada and Arizona all set records for hospitalizations on Thursday, a sobering harbinger of what is yet to come, the Washington Post reported. The virus appears to be spreading wildly in Arizona, as hospitals rushed to expand capacity and adopted practices similar to those employed at the height of the outbreak in New York City and Italy, the Post reported. Those measures include doubling up hospital beds in rooms, pausing elective surgeries and bringing in health-care workers from other states. Preparing for the worst, state officials this week activated crisis protocols, which determine for hospitals which patients get ventilators and care as the system becomes overwhelmed under the crush of patients, the Post reported. “You look at what happened in Lombardy, Italy. What happened in New York. That’s what is about to happen here. People are going to die because our system is overwhelmed,” said Will Humble, who directed Arizona’s Department of Health Services for six years under its previous Republican governor. “It’s important for other states to learn from us. This wasn’t bad luck. It was avoidable. Don’t let this happen to you. You look back at the past few months…  read on >

You may enjoy the fireworks on the Fourth of July, but there’s a good chance Fido and Fluffy do not. “Even pets that are not usually sensitive to loud sounds and noise can become extremely stressed due to the sound of fireworks,” said John Howe, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association. “It’s hard not to feel helpless when you see them shaking and panting and so obviously distressed,” he added. With a little advance preparation, you can ease your pets’ anxiety and keep them calm. Here’s how: Try a workout. Take your dog(s) out for play and exercise earlier in the day. This can help burn off extra energy, limit their their anxiety later and help them rest more soundly. Update I.D. Make sure your pet has up-to-date identification tags and that their microchip has your correct contact information, because highly stressed pets may run off. Proper I.D. improves the chances that your pet will make it home safely if that occurs, Howe said. Give pets a safe space. Keep them indoors. Cats tend to feel most secure in a covered spot off the ground, like a hut in an indoor cat tree. For a dog, put its crate or bed in the quietest, most secure room possible. Keep windows and curtains closed to help muffle sounds. Try different things to see what works…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — For the 27th day in a row, the rolling seven-day average for daily new coronavirus cases in the United States set another record on Sunday, climbing past 48,000 COVID-19 infections in just 24 hours. At the same time, coronavirus-related hospitalizations rose to their highest levels to date in Arizona and Nevada, the Washington Post reported. “We’re right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak,” former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on the CBS show, “Face the Nation,” the Post reported. “The difference now is that we really had one epicenter of spread when New York was going through its hardship, now we really have four major epicenters of spread: Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida, and Arizona. And Florida looks to be in the worst shape.” On Sunday, new coronavirus cases in that state exceeded 10,000 in a day for the third time in the past week, after the state posted a record of 11,458 new cases on Saturday, the Post reported. More than 47,000 of Florida’s cases are in Miami-Dade county. “We’ve been breaking record after record after record . . . the last couple of weeks,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Florida’s total caseload hit 200,000, a grim milestone only passed so…  read on >

Stressed from home-schooling your kids? Lonely from lockdown? Worried about a sick loved one isolated in a nursing home? Worried you might lose your job? The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is affecting everyone’s mental health in ways small and large, and experts are concerned that for many, today’s anxiety will become a tidal wave of mental health problems in the years ahead. The pandemic is adding to what already was an underrecognized mental health crisis in the United States, according to Dr. Don Mordecai, national mental health and wellness lead at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif. Rates of anxiety and depression have steadily risen for years, as have deaths of despair related to suicide and drug overdose, he said during a HD Live! interview. “All those things have been going up for decades, really, and now you bring the pandemic in,” Mordecai said. “It’s not like we were in good shape in terms of our mental health and now it’s getting worse. It’s more like we were not in good shape, and then you bring in another big stressor.” Clinical psychologist Jelena Kecmanovic also is concerned about the toll of the anxiety-provoking changes to everyday life that people are enduring. “Anxiety is exhausting and terrifying,” said Kecmanovic, director of the Arlington/DC Behavior Therapy Institute in Arlington, Va. “If it is happening long enough, you’re going to…  read on >

As U.S. coronavirus infections surged in many states, four of America’s top health officials plan to testify in Congress on Tuesday about how to safely reopen the country. Originally billed as an “update on progress toward safely getting back to work and back to school,” members of the Senate’s health and education committee will instead have to tackle the reality that reopening hasn’t proven safe or easy, The New York Times reported. Dr. Anthony Fauci will be joined at the hearing by Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn; and Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health. With new cases spiking in many parts of the country, at least a dozen states and cities have slowed reopening plans, the Washington Post reported. Not only case counts are climbing: COVID-19 hospitalizations are spiking in seven states, the Post reported. In Texas, Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, Montana, Georgia and California, seven-day averages are up at least 25 percent from last week, the newspaper said. In California, coronavirus case counts have exploded, now surpassing 220,000 infections, the Times reported. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been forced to roll back the state’s reopening in some counties. On Monday, he said the number of people hospitalized in California had increased 43 percent over the past two…  read on >

The number of new U.S. coronavirus cases broke yet another record on Tuesday, as the nation’s top infectious disease expert warned that daily counts could soon top 100,000 a day if the spread of COVID-19 isn’t slowed. “I can’t make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing, I will guarantee you that, because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country, even though in other parts of the country they are doing well, they are vulnerable,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. “We’ve really got to do something about that, and we need to do it quickly,” Fauci testified during questioning from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Clearly, we are not in total control right now.” More than 47,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the United States on Tuesday, with case counts spiking 80 percent in the past two weeks, The New York Times reported. Officials in eight states Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also announced single-day highs. With new cases spiking in the South and West, at least a dozen states and cities have slowed reopening plans, the Washington Post reported. It’s not just new infections that are climbing: COVID-19 hospitalizations are also spiking in seven states, the Post reported, suggesting that more than simply upped testing…  read on >