Cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States surpassed six million on Sunday, as many states in the Midwest reported increasing infections. Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota have recently reported record one-day increases in new cases while Montana and Idaho are seeing record numbers of currently hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
New hotspots are in counties such as Iowa, home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which are holding some in-person classes. Colleges and universities around the country have seen outbreaks after students returned to campus, forcing some to switch to online-only learning. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday said a New York (SUNY) campus in Oneonta in upstate New York has experienced a COVID-19 outbreak. Fall classes, which started last week at the college, were suspended for two weeks after more than 100 people tested positive for the virus..
More than eight months into the pandemic, the United States continues to struggle with testing, with at least 33 states rejecting the new COVID-19 testing guidance issued by the Trump administration last week. However, public health officials believe the United States needs to test more frequently to find asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers to slow the spread of the disease.
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