Virus keeps spreading as schools begin to open, frightening parents and alarming public health officials

COLUMBUS, Miss. — Even before President Trump admonished his top coronavirus adviser for saying the country was entering a “new phase” of widespread infection, patients at Mississippi’s only Level 1 trauma hospital were already on a wait for ICU beds.

“Our ICUs have been full for weeks,” LouAnn Woodward, a vice chancellor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, said Thursday. “It’s a very acute issue we’re facing here.”

Mississippi, now experiencing the country’s highest rate of positive tests, is emblematic of the pandemic’s new reality. The virus is no longer principally an urban problem: It is present throughout every state, and those infected often don’t know it, leading to what top public health officials call “inherent community spread.” Continue reading.