Each week, good news about vaccines or antibody treatments surfaces, offering hope that an end to the pandemic is at hand. The United States has reached an appalling milestone: more than one million new coronavirus cases every week. The number of deaths is rising and seems on track to easily surpass the 2,200-a-day average in the spring, when the pandemic was concentrated in the New York metropolitan area. The nation now must endure a critical period of transition, one that threatens to last far too long, as we set aside justifiable optimism about next spring and confront the dark winter ahead. Some epidemiologists predict that the death toll by March could be close to twice the 250,000 figure that the nation surpassed only last week.

Source: New York Times November 30, 2020 20:30 UTC