Rising Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations underscore the long road ahead

With roughly 20,000 new Covid-19 cases still being recorded daily across the country, the U.S. is now confronting what many public health experts have been warning about: The pandemic will be with us for many more months. Even as cases are decreasing in many of the states that were initially hit by the novel coronavirus, about half the states — including Arizona, Texas, and Alabama — are seeing daily surges and increased hospitalizations. What's also concerning is that Americans have become numb to these daily and consistent increases in Covid-19 cases, which could hinder efforts to keep the disease at bay. “I’m worried that people have kind of accepted where we are as a new normal,” public health expert Tom Inglesby tells STAT's Andrew Joseph. Read more here.

Here's what else is new with the pandemic:

A large study found that a cheap steroid called dexamethasone, which is used to treat asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and some cancers, was effective against Covid-19 in hospitalized patients needing oxygen. Compared to those who received standard care, the drug reduced deaths by 35% in seriously ill Covid-19 patients on ventilators.
In its most concrete pledge to data about vaccine affordability, the Trump administration announced that any future Covid-19 vaccine would be free to "vulnerable" Americans who are unable to afford it. The federal government also plans to implement a tiered approach to ensure high-risk individuals and frontline workers get access to a vaccine first.
A new modeling study suggests that in the absence of a vaccine for Covid-19, a combination of self-isolation, household quarantine, and contact tracing could be a viable ongoing strategy for controlling the pandemic. This combination of measures could reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by 47% to 64%, the analysis found.