Coronavirus Watch: See inside a hospital battling COVID-19
The COVID unit is eerily quiet.
The only sounds are the beeps of machines and the shuffle of staff in protective gear entering and exiting rooms of people who lie sedated, eyes closed, with multiple tubes coming out of their mouths.
There are no get-well cards in the patient rooms, no balloons, no flowers and no visitors.
As COVID-19 continues to hammer states across the nation, Tucson Medical Center provides an inside look at what hospitals are up against.
It's Saturday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's the most significant news of the day, as of 12:15 p.m. ET:
- Every state in the country had visitors from the Sunshine State this week, according to mobility tracking data, despite a surge of cases in Florida.
- Walt Disney World was expected to begin a phased reopening this weekend, nearly four months after the theme park shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- Heart, brain, kidney, skin: There's further evidence that COVID-19 is far more than a respiratory disease, according to a review published in the journal Nature on Friday.
- 7-Eleven Free Slurpee Day? The annual deal was canceled due to the pandemic, but free frozen drinks are still up for grabs!
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott begged Texans to mask up in an interview Friday, saying face coverings were "the only way" businesses could stay open.
- Up to 8,000 people currently incarcerated in California state prisons could be released by the end of August in an effort to prevent coronavirus transmission, the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Friday.
- Today's numbers: The U.S. has more than 3.1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than 134,000 deaths have been confirmed, according to John Hopkins University data. Worldwide, there are more than 12.5 million confirmed cases, and more than 561,000 people have died. See the numbers in your area here, and see where cases are rising here.
Do you have questions about the coronavirus? You can submit them through this form, and we'll answer them. One reader asks: What percentage of the population in the United States has been tested for COVID-19?
The U.S., with a population of 331 million, has conducted nearly 39 million tests, according to Johns Hopkins University data. But some people may have been tested more than once.
The U.S. has conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country and is conducting more daily tests, per capita, than any other nation. Johns Hopkins notes, however, that this still may not be enough: Testing programs should be scaled to the size of the nation's epidemic, not the size of the population, and the U.S. has the world's largest outbreak.
Of those tests, the positivity rate in the U.S. is more than 6%. Many nations, particularly in South America, are facing double-digit positivity rates. The WHO has issued guidance stating that governments should see positivity rates below 5% for at least 14 days before relaxing social distancing measures.
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– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck