WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden is calling for a nationwide protective mask mandate, citing health experts’ predictions that it could save 40,000 lives from coronavirus over the next three months.
”Wearing the mask is less about you contracting the virus,” Biden said. “It’s about preventing other people from getting sick.”
The detection of four new infected family members earlier this week shocked a country that had recorded no locally transmitted cases for more than three months.
Of the new cases, 13 have been linked back to this family, while one is an overseas arrival who was in quarantine.
A three-day lockdown was imposed in Auckland on Wednesday.
"We can see the seriousness of the situation we are in," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a news conference.
"It’s being dealt with in an urgent but calm and methodical way."
Germany has recorded its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases in more than three months as European countries struggle to curb a surge in infections.
More than 1,200 cases were reported in Germany in the past 24 hours. Officials said the rise was due, in part, to people returning from holidays.
It came as Germany warned against non-essential trips to parts of Spain.
Meanwhile, France had 2,524 new cases in 24 hours, the highest daily rise since its lockdown was lifted in May.
....As the United States struggles to control the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the country are using Twitter to announce the arrival of their virus test results. The point of these tweets is not just to broadcast the result itself, but to point out the absurdity of receiving a result so stale that it’s almost completely useless from a public health standpoint.
