The U.S. on Friday surpassed 9 million confirmed coronavirus cases, with over 91,000 reported on Thursday alone, a new daily record. The death toll is quickly approaching 230,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Video from inside the intensive care unit at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital shows front line workers battling coronavirus in plastic body armor. Illinois on Friday recorded its highest number of hospitalizations since early June, with 6,943. Hospitalizations in the state are up at least 85% in the last month.
The Midwest is still the nation’s epicenter, for now, due in part to coronavirus fatigue, and COVID-19 deniers, according to Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “Up to a third of the population believes this pandemic is a hoax and they believe that will end next Wednesday and no public health messaging is having an impact on that population.”
In Wisconsin, the CDC found that a sleepaway camp was a super spreader event this summer, with one positive case leading to 116 infections. Meanwhile, South Dakota is battling a positivity rate of an astonishing 46%, nearly half of tests come back positive.
Doug Raysby, 57, was one of the people behind those numbers. He died from COVID last week at the Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls.
“There was a week of the 10 days of his stay that the doctor said, ‘I want him to be in ICU because he needs an extended level of care and we don’t have any beds,'” said Kathy James, Raysby’s mother-in-law.
“They didn’t have any beds?” CBS News asked.
They did not have any beds,” said James, who works as a nurse.
“How do you feel about that?” CBS News asked.
“I’m livid. The final conversation that we had with him, he just cried. He said he was scared and that he was going to die and he was going to die by himself,” said James.
The hospital wouldn’t comment on a specific patient but said they’re providing appropriate care.
