Texas surpassed 9,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients Tuesday for the first time since a deadly summer outbreak as the pandemic’s spread threatened the Big Bend region near the desert artist hub of Marfa, where tourists continued visiting and officials urged people to stay home, AP reports.
The rising number of cases near the remote West Texas border is but another example of how the virus is now spreading into places that ducked previous surges but are now ensnared by its long-reaching tentacles and confronted with its wide-ranging challenges.
Texas reported more than 15,000 new cases Tuesday, smashing the previous single-day record. State health officials attributed at least some of the spike to a lag in reporting over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but doctors and local leaders still say they’re trending in the wrong direction.
Marfa is located about 200 miles (321.87 kilometers) down the border from El Paso, where hospitalizations have fallen slightly after a grim November. The town of roughly 1,700 people is the second-largest in Presidio County, where in the past two weeks the number of cases since the pandemic began has doubled to at least 460 confirmed cases, according to state health figures.
The county borders Ojinagao, Mexico, and the only hospital in rural Alpine has just enough beds to treat only a handful of Covid-19 patients.
In more Australian economy news:
Australia’s housing market could potentially surpass pre-Covid levels by early 2021 as housing prices continue to rise across the country.
Experts now believe that if the virus remains under control in Australia, prices will no longer decline by 10% to 20%, as initially forecast.
Building on gains made in October, CoreLogic has now recorded a 0.8% rise in dwelling values in November. The recovery comes after a pandemic-influenced 2.1% drop in housing prices between April and September.
If the growth trend persists, Tim Lawless, CoreLogic’s head of research, thinks the national home value index will surpass pre-Covid levels in early 2021:
Australian economy grows 3.3% in September quarter
The Australian economy rose 3.3% in the September quarter, the latest national accounts reveal.
The national accounts, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics just now, shows that rise in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures, after a 7% fall in the June quarter.
That 7% fall was the biggest fall ever seen since records began in 1959 in Australia.
Through the year, the ABS said, GDP fell 3.8%.
It also said terms of trade rose 0.7%, and the household saving ratio decreased slightly.
Updated
In the US, a government panel on Tuesday formally recommended early doses of Covid-19 vaccines be given first to healthcare workers and long-term care facility residents in the US, generally seen as people who live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
Together, that group would represent roughly 23 million Americans, disproportionately including women, people of color and low-wage workers who makeup the healthcare labor force.
The recommendation from the panel at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hinges on a vaccine being approved for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration and later recommended by the advisory panel:
In England, the government has announced details of the new three tier system that will come into effect in when the four-week national lockdown across the country ends on 2 December.
Non-essential shops in all areas can reopen, as can gyms, hairdressers and other personal care businesses, with the formal instruction to stay at home coming to an end. The “rule of six” will again apply for outdoor gatherings in all areas.
Places of worship will be able to open and weddings will be allowed within local restrictions.
The system has been criticised in parliament by Labour leader Keir Starmer, saying that introducing a three-tier system without an effective test and trace system is a “major risk”.
The hospitality industry has also warned the stricter system of tiers will “ruin Christmas” for struggling restaurants, hotels and pubs:
