Evacuees prepared to board a bus out of Lake Charles, La., on Wednesday. Hurricane Laura made landfall early on Thursday.
Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesThe number of new coronavirus infections in the U.S. increased for a third straight day as Hurricane Laura pummeled the Gulf Coast, stirring fears about how the storm might make it harder to track the spread of the contagion.
The U.S. reported about 44,100 new cases on Wednesday, up from about 38,200 a day before, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Total infections have passed 5.82 million nationwide, and nearly 180,000 have died. Around the world, some 24.2 million people have been infected and more than 826,000 have died.
Louisiana, where Hurricane Laura made landfall just after midnight as a Category 4 storm, plans to remain in Phase 2 of its reopening plan for an additional two weeks as it temporarily halts testing to deal with the impact of the storm.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said it has been a significant challenge to deal with a natural catastrophe during the Covid-19 pandemic. The state housed most evacuees in hotels to maintain social distance, meaning that there are few available hotel rooms available for families who didn’t evacuate but sustained severe damage to their homes.
Of the 1,200 people in shelters in Louisiana, about 200 were in group shelters, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
In an interview Thursday with MSNBC, the governor said he expected the state would have to find hotel rooms in neighboring states for people displaced by the storm.
Louisiana also had to shut down testing sites in advance of the storm and Gov. Edwards said it would be difficult to get them running again because of storm damage and staffing issues. They were run by members of the National Guard working on storm relief.
“We are very mindful that this storm is going to complicate our efforts to get this virus under control,” he said in the MSNBC interview.
Data suggest that, prior to this point, the virus’s spread may have been slowing in Louisiana. The state’s seven-day average of new cases has been less than its 14-day average for more than two weeks, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins data, suggesting cases are declining. The state had 844 new cases for Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins.
Coronavirus hospitalizations in Louisiana have dropped to their lowest number since July 4, though more than 900 people remain hospitalized, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project. The state’s seven-day average positivity rate was 4.9%.
On Wednesday, Texas reported more than 6,300 new cases, the state’s highest tally in the past 10 days, according to data from Johns Hopkins. The seven-day average of new cases has been lower than the two-week average, suggesting a drop in additional cases, for almost a week. Currently 4,806 people there are hospitalized, the lowest number since June 25. The state’s seven-day average positivity rate was 14.1%.
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Elsewhere, California reported nearly 6,000 fresh cases for Wednesday, though the actual number may be higher. Gov. Gavin Newsom said earlier this week that wildfires were affecting some of the state’s testing labs.
Florida reported more than 3,000 new cases after three days of reporting less than 3,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins. Alabama reported 2,000 new daily cases for the first time since Aug. 2. Georgia and Illinois also recorded 2,000 additional cases, while Tennessee reported just under that amount.
Kansas reported more than 1,000 new cases in a day for the first time since the pandemic started. Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio also recorded more than 1,000 additional cases Wednesday.
The slight uptick in daily totals comes as testing in the U.S. has been falling. The seven-day average of daily tests for Wednesday was 683,538, the lowest level in about six weeks. That average peaked July 29 at 820,978 tests. Looking at averages helps smooth out anomalies in the data.
Standards for testing in the U.S. are still the subject of debate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dialed back its guidelines about who should get tested, a move that prompted pushback from public-health and infectious-disease experts.
The agency now says close contacts of people with confirmed Covid-19 don’t necessarily need to be tested if they don’t have symptoms. Earlier, it advised that all people exposed to an infected person get tested.
World Health Organization Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr. Michael Ryan said in a briefing Thursday that while the purpose of testing is to determine whether a suspected case has the virus, there is reason to test those who may have been exposed to the virus.
However, he said broad-based testing of a population “at this point in most countries is not really that useful.”
“It absorbs huge amounts of resources,” he said.
A new, $5 coronavirus test from Abbott Laboratories gained emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. The testing device is about the size of a credit card and can give results in about 15 minutes. Abbott said Wednesday it plans to ship tens of millions of the tests in September, with plans to increase production to 50 million in October.
Meanwhile, Moderna Inc. said Wednesday that its experimental coronavirus vaccine induced immune responses in people aged 56 years and older that were comparable to those seen in younger adults in a small study, a promising sign for a vulnerable age group.
Unemployment claims in the U.S. declined last week to one million, according to a report Thursday, but remain historically high. U.S. stocks rose after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank was going to stop pre-emptively boosting rates to try to keep inflation lower. The change may allow the Fed to continue stimulus programs for longer even as economic conditions heat up, said a strategist with RBC Capital Markets.
Sources: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering; the Lancet; Associated Press; U.S. Census
Sources: Johns Hopkins University (cases); Census Bureau (population)
Elsewhere, Guam’s Covid-19 case number continues to rise, with the U.S. territory recording 136 new cases and two deaths late Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases to 1,120. Of the new cases, 37 were reported by the Department of Defense, which has now reported 164 in the past week.
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said the island needed to remain committed to the stay at home order or the island will have more rough days. “I cannot protect them alone—I need your help. Wear your mask, social distance at least 6 feet, and more importantly, please stay home,” Ms. Guerrero said.
France reported 5,429 new daily infections, its largest number since the height of the epidemic in early April. The government is hoping to avoid another nationwide lockdown, but Prime Minister Jean Castex told a news briefing it must move quickly to head off a broader outbreak as new cases mount in Paris, particularly among young people.
Indonesia reported its biggest daily rise in infections yet, recording 2,719 new cases Thursday, bringing its total to 162,884. A further 120 people have died, according to the data, taking the toll to 7,064.
India’s death toll passed 60,000 Thursday, when the country reported 75,760 new coronavirus cases and 1,023 deaths, for a total of 3.31 million infections.
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Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com and Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com
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