HOUSTON (AP) — The coronavirus kept surging in hot spots around the U.S. on Thursday, with one city in South Carolina urging people to pray it into submission, a hospital in Texas bringing in military medical personnel and morgues running out of space in Phoenix.
The escalating crisis in Texas shows how the chronic underfunding of public health has put America on track for the worst coronavirus response in the developed world.
The World Health Organization warned Monday that there could be no return to normality any time soon as too many countries were bungling their response to the coronavirus pandemic. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that if public health guidelines are not followed, the crisis will get "worse and worse and worse."
PITTSBURGH — A little more than three weeks ago, officials in Pittsburgh announced a milestone enviable for almost any major city in America: A day had gone by without a single new confirmed case of the coronavirus. It was good news for a city that had seen only a modest outbreak all along, even as the virus raged through places like Philadelphia and New York.