The United States has more than 50,000 contact tracers for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit, according to a survey of states conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in collaboration with NPR.
The total number of contact tracers reported in all U.S. states and territories was 53,116. That's four times the number of contact tracers states reported to NPR in its initial survey in late April, but it falls far short of the more than 100,000 that public health experts have been calling for since the pandemic began seven months ago.
U.S. regulators Wednesday approved the first drug for the treatment of Ebola.
The Food and Drug Administration OK’d the drug developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for treating adults and children. It was tested during an outbreak in Congo that killed nearly 2,300 people before it ended in June.
....Clearly, the pandemic has not ended. So far some 215,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus, and reliable estimates suggest that the number could reach 400,000. Health experts agree that, with stronger leadership, the death toll would have been far lower.
