No US national lockdown despite surging Covid cases, says Biden adviser

President-elect Joe Biden’s top coronavirus adviser said Friday there aren’t any plans so far for a national lockdown under the incoming administration, despite the coronavirus shattering records across the country in recent days.

“We’re not in a place where we’re saying shut the whole country down,” Dr Vivek Murthy, a former US surgeon general, now on Mr Biden’s coronavirus advisory team, told ABC’s Good Morning America. “Right now the way we should be thinking about this is more like a series of restrictions that we dial up or down depending on how bad a spread is taking place in a specific region,” he added.

He also noted that after the better part of a year with the pandemic, the US still doesn’t have sufficient testing to inform a proper coronavirus response.

“We have struggled, still to this point, even though we’ve made some progress in the last 8 months, we still don’t have adequate testing, so that anyone who wants a test can get one and can get their results quickly,” he said.  

The new administration is coming to power as the US experiences, by some measures, its worst wave of cases so far, so its response will be crucial.

Cases have surged around the country, driven by people gathering inside as the winter approaches, businesses and schools re-opening, and growing laxity around mask-wearing and social distancing.

On Friday, the US experienced a record 177,000 new daily cases, the fourth straight day it set an all-time record. Illinois also set a new daily record that day, with 15,433 cases, the most of any state in a 24 hour period, beating Florida’s record from July. The day before, California became the second state in the country to confirm more than 1 million total infections.

Hospitals in North and South Dakota are nearing capacity, with one hospital chief there comparing cases to “a spigot,” and the US has experienced over 1,000 coronavirus daily deaths for days on end, a level not seen since May.

In response to this dramatic spike, states across the country are taking renewed public health measures to tamp down the virus. California, Oregon, and Wisconsin are asking residents to avoid leaving the state for non-essential travel, especially for holiday travel, and to quarantine for two weeks when they return if they do so.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown has ordered social gatherings to be no bigger than six people.

“I am not asking you, I am telling you, to stop your social gatherings ... and your house parties and to limit your social interactions to six and under, not more than one household,” Ms Brown said recently.

Other states, like New Mexico, have gone even further, banning gatherings of five or more from people of different households and shuttering non-essential businesses.

And six states in the Northeast, including New York, the place hit hardest in the early months of the pandemic, could soon join them, with their governors planning an emergency meeting over the weekend to discuss a renewed response.

Across the world, countries like Spain, Italy, Ireland, and England are also imposing stricter containment measures.

A complicated mix of science, politics, and culture are driving the new surge and causing the US to have the among the highest Covid death tolls in the world. America never really contained its summer surge, but still pushed to re-open businesses and schools, as the president projected a false sense of defeating the virus. While the president claimed the virus was entering the rearview mirror, the economic pain for millions continued to worsen, as both sides in Washington still can’t agree on a continued coronavirus aide package. Making matters worse, flu season is upon as, just as more people gather inside during winter months to beat the cold the celebrate the holidays, usually a time of record travel.

There is some hope, as the coronavirus vaccine effort progresses, that life could return to normal eventually.

But it seems clear that president Trump’s wishful request in October, following his own positive diagnosis, that Americans shouldn’t let Covid “dominate your life,” won’t be coming true any time soon.