The coronavirus has infected 4.6 million people in the United States and killed more than 155,000 Americans. (File)
Washington:
The United States is in a new phase of the novel coronavirus outbreak with infections “extraordinarily widespread” in rural areas as well as in cities, White House coronavirus experts said Sunday.
Coronavirus cases continue to rise in parts of the country, and public health officials are trying to work with governors to tailor responses to each state.
“We are in a new phase,” said Dr Deborah Birx. “What we see today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread” in both rural and urban areas.
“To anyone who lives in a rural area: you are not immune or protected from this virus,” Birx told CNN’s “State of the Union”.
Birx, the White House task force coordinator, said people living in multigenerational households in an area that is experiencing an epidemic should wear masks inside the home to protect the elderly or those suffering from underlying diseases.
Admiral Brett Giroir, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, continued to emphasize the importance of wearing masks.
“If we don’t do that, and if we don’t limit crowded indoor spaces, the virus will continue to run,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
“We are very worried and this is a very serious point.”
The coronavirus, which first appeared in China, has infected 4.6 million people in the United States and killed more than 155,000 Americans, according to a Reuters tally.
Birx said federal officials had worked on individual reports for each state examining community trends and hospital records. “Each of these answers needs to be drastically tailored,” she said.
She said what she had witnessed during her visit to 14 states in the past three weeks gave her cause for concern.
“As I traveled across the country, I saw all of America move,” Birx said. “If you’ve chosen to go on vacation to a hot spot, you really have to come back and protect those with comorbidities and assume you’re infected.”
If people wear masks and avoid crowds, Giroir said, it gives the same result as a full stop.
“That’s why we go to all the states, we’re on local radio, we give specific instructions to each governor by county, what they have to do when we start – when those counties start to turn yellow, because that this is the time when you have to suffocate it, ”he said.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
