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Bloomberg

Total US coronavirus infections passed 13 million on Friday, ﻿as infections in New York state, the early epicentre of the US outbreak, topped 8,000 for the first time since April.
Americans stayed home on Black Friday as infections continued to climb, with the usual post-Thanksgiving shopping crowds conspicuously absent.
On Fifth Avenue in New York City, the line outside the Philippine consulate was longer than the tiny queue to get into Zara. At Macy’s Herald Square, the biggest department store in the US, it looked more like a normal day than the busiest shopping event of the year.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that of a record 219,442 tests reported in the state on Thursday, 8,176 were positive, or 3.72 per cent of the total. The average positivity two weeks ago was 2.86 per cent.


“We’re seeing an increase with the numbers across the country and within our own state,” Cuomo said in a press release. “It started with the fall, and it’s going to continue and probably worsen in the winter.”
Hospitalisations climbed by 47 to 3,103, while 38 New Yorkers died on Thursday, bringing the total to 26,588.
Minnesota meanwhile reported 101 deaths, a record since the start of the pandemic.
“For weeks we have been sounding the alarm about the dramatic growth in Covid-19 cases.” Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said in a statement on Friday. “We know that more cases lead to more hospitalisations and deaths, and today’s news reinforces that tragic pattern.”
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Among the deaths, 64 were in long-term care or assisted living facilities, the Star Tribune reported. A total of 3,535 people have died in the state.
Cases, however, slowed in Texas and North Dakota, according to numbers released on Friday.
The 2,473 new Covid-19 cases reported in Texas represented an 83 per cent drop from the record number of cases reported Wednesday, figures from the Department of State Health Services show.


New cases dropped from the 14,648 reported Wednesday. The number of infections in Texas now stands above 1.1 million with 21,207 deaths.
North Dakota’s outbreak showed signs of easing, as it reported its fifth consecutive drop in active cases and a slight overall dip in patients in an overwhelmed hospital system.
Active cases fell to 8,225, down almost 2,000 from November 13, the Department of Health reported. Another 797 new infections were reported, in a week with four days over 1,000. Seven people died.
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North Dakota, one of the hardest-hit states in the Midwest, adopted a statewide mask mandate on November 14 as well as some restrictions on businesses.
Experts have warned that coronavirus testing numbers are likely to be erratic over the next week or so, as fewer people get tested during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and testing sites observe shorter hours.
The result could be potential dips in reported infections that offer the illusion that the spread of the virus is easing when, in fact, the numbers say little about where the nation stands in fighting Covid-19.


“I just hope that people don’t misinterpret the numbers and think that there wasn’t a major surge as a result of Thanksgiving, and then end up making Christmas and Hanukkah and other travel plans,” said Dr Leana Wen, a professor at George Washington University and an emergency doctor.
A similar pattern unfolds on many weekends. Because some testing centres, labs and state offices are closed on Saturdays and Sundays, Covid-19 case numbers often drop each Sunday and Monday, only to peak on Tuesday.
Dr Mark Rupp, professor and chief of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre in Omaha, said the effect of Thanksgiving is likely to be a magnified version of the weekend figures.
The Thursday holiday will exacerbate the record-keeping discrepancies over the long weekend, artificially depressing the reported numbers for four or five days before spiking as test results catch up.
Johns Hopkins University reported a high of more than 2 million tests a few days before Thanksgiving as people prepared to travel, but that number had dropped to less than 1.2 million tests reported on Thanksgiving Day.


The latter number, as well as positive case numbers, which had dropped by about a third Friday, could be adjusted as more results are returned.
“I think it can be kind of a false sense of security for some people. And I suspect that, again, after the Thanksgiving holiday is over, we’ll see kind of a surge of people catching up with their testing next week,” Rupp said.
“And then I fully expect that, because people have continued to travel, they’ve continued to have gatherings outside their immediate family, that we will see a surge in cases here over the next one to three weeks.”
Cities and states generally use hospitalisation and intensive care numbers, which lag behind virus case reporting, to determine when to increase or ease public health restrictions and recommendations. But the public is more likely to look at testing numbers or case counts, which might be misleading, Wen said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


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New York infections top 8,000 for first time since April; Minnesota reports record daily deaths
Experts warn that testing numbers are likely to be erratic over the next week or so, as fewer people get tested during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend



New York infections top 8,000 for first time since April; Minnesota reports record daily deaths.


Coronavirus: US cases top 13 million, Black Friday shoppers stay home

New York infections top 8,000 for first time since April; Minnesota reports record daily deaths Experts warn that testing numbers are likely to be erratic over the next week or so, as fewer people get tested during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend

New York infections top 8,000 for first time since April; Minnesota reports record daily deaths

Experts warn that testing numbers are likely to be erratic over the next week or so, as fewer people get tested during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend