In other coronavirus news: Jobless claims climbed over a million as Pence praises Trump administration's pandemic performance
Texas and Louisiana were still struggling to contain the pandemic as Hurricane Laura bore down on them, and now officials fear a new wave of COVID-19 infections will come in the wake of the massive storm.“We’re basically going to be blind for this week because we’ll have to discontinue much of our community-based testing,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said before the hurricane made landfall Thursday along the border of his state and Texas.
Laura made landfall not long after Vice President Mike Pence defended the much-criticized pandemic performance of the Trump administration at the Republican National Convention. Story continuesBefore Laura arrived, scientists at Columbia University and the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that a large-scale hurricane evacuation could increase the chances of spreading the pandemic.
Louisiana was slower to reopen, but it too saw a spike in new cases and deaths and currently has the highest number of confirmed cases per capita in the country with more than 145,000, according to the latest NBC News figures. It has also recorded 4,851 deaths.
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