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Covid-19 cases are on the rise in all 50 states, NBC News data shows

Corky Siemaszko

All 50 states plus Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam have reported an increase in coronavirus cases from over the past 14 days, the latest NBC News data showed Tuesday.

And in a dozen of those states -- Vermont, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Pennsylvania and New York -– infections have spiked in the last two weeks, meaning there has been a 100 percent or more increase in confirmed cases over 14 days.

With so many new cases, hospitals across the country -- and the doctors treating the deluge of new patients -- were reaching the breaking point.

“Every day, we seem to break our record for total number of new patients,” Dr. Jeff Pothof, University of Wisconsin Hospital emergency room doctor and chief quality officer, said on MSNBC. “We’re all tired. Everyone is tired. We’re all doing our best. Medicine is a team sport, but we need some help. Things are not going well for us.”

In other coronavirus news:

    Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont echoed Pothof in a CNBC interview.

    “My worry is going to be hospital personnel," Lamont said. "That's something we don't have as much control over, and last time we could borrow from states that had low infection rates. Today, there are no states with low infection rates.”

    In Cleveland, there were so many new infections reported over the weekend that city workers could not count them all in time for the Monday briefing.

    “The City of Cleveland is experiencing an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases, unlike anything yet reported during this pandemic,” the city said in a statement.

    Currently, the U.S. leads the world with 11.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 248,000 fatalities, NBC News figures show.

    While two promising Covid-19 vaccines are still months away from widespread distribution, Dr. Anthony Fauci said there is still a long winter ahead and Americans need to bear down and continue wearing masks and avoid taking part in the large indoor gatherings that have been accelerating the number of infections.

    “We don't want the extraordinary success of these two vaccines to get people to be complacent,” Fauci said on CNN. “I've often said help is on the way, but help is not here yet."

    In Chicago, where strict restrictions were reimposed Monday to counter the alarming rise in new cases, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Americans have to step up and do the right thing.

    “We understand that people are sick and tired, but death is real, and it is on the horizon for us if we don't dig down and do more,” Lightfoot said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “So we are urging people to stay home, to not be in large crowds, to wear face coverings, and really take responsibility for their own lives.”

    But that message continued to be undermined by Dr. Scott Atlas, one of Trump’s top pandemic advisers, who has been criticized for, among other things, peddling misinformation about herd immunity and making false claims about the effectiveness of masks at stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

    After appearing to encourage large Thanksgiving family gatherings during a Monday evening interview on Fox News, Atlas returned to the cable network and the “Brian Kilmeade Show” on Tuesday during which he said masks are not necessary for children.

    Never mind that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the world’s top public health experts say masks protect both the wearers and everybody else from infection.

    “We’re creating a generation, by the way, of neurotic children wearing masks when they have very little, if any, significant risk from this,” Atlas said. “You know, I mean, the country’s off the rails, I tried to get it back on the rails."

    Unlike Fauci, Atlas is not an expert on infectious diseases. He is a radiologist and on leave from his post as a senior fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution.

    “Dr. Atlas has expressed views that are inconsistent with the university’s approach in response to the pandemic,” Stanford University said in a tweet. “Dr. Atlas’s statements reflect his personal views, not those of the Hoover Institution of the university.”

    Trump has been called the world’s biggest spreader of coronavirus misinformation. He has also been accused of politicizing the use of masks by often refusing to wear one in public and presiding over rallies and other events where there was little or no mask-wearing, even after he was infected with Covid-19.

    That partisan divide was on display Monday in the Senate when Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, took Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, to task for not wearing a mask while presiding over the chamber. He said Sullivan was endangering Senate staffers.

    “I don’t wear a mask when I’m speaking, like most senators,” a clearly miffed Sullivan said while his red, white and blue mask sat atop his desk. “I don’t need your instructions.”

    "I know you don't need my instruction, but there clearly isn't much interest in this body in public health,” Brown, who was wearing a mask, fired back. "We have a president who hasn't shown up at the coronavirus task force meeting in months.”

    At the moment, two Republican senators, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rick Scott of Florida, are in quarantine after being exposed to somebody infected with Covid-19.

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