The awful figures just keep coming. The United States reported 153,496 COVID-19 cases on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University—another record high and the 10th consecutive day that cases have topped 100,000. Worse still, at least 919 deaths were reported during the day, and 67,096 people are in hospital with the virus. Thursday was the third consecutive day that that nation has topped 60,000 current hospitalizations. Meanwhile, a member of Joe Biden’s advisory group has told the Financial Times that President Donald Trump’s flagship vaccine program, Operation Warp Speed, isn’t going far enough. Céline Gounder, an infectious-disease specialist at NYU’s Langone Health, said the effort needs to refocus to improve the speed and quality of coronavirus testing, rather than pouring all of its time into coming up with an effective vaccine.
