With the pandemic still in Texas and Louisiana and Hurricane Laura rushing toward its shores, the local government is suffering to keep others out of harm’s way, while keeping them away from each other by hosting them in hotels. But Travis County, which includes the city of Austin, was temporarily left without rooms. And the concept of staying in a full shelter of refugees from the typhoon raised many doubts about the abandonment of their homes. “I hope it’s not so threatening to other people, for life, because other people don’t dare go anywhere because of COVID,” Duffy said as he placed sandbags around his home in Morgan City, Louisiana. “No one needs to sleep in a gym with two hundred other people. It’s a little difficult to distance yourself socially. Houston, which flooded Hurricane Harvey in 2017, closed all public coronavirus testing sites before the typhoon. Dr. Joseph Varon, the leading medical officer at United Memorial Medical Center, told the Houston Chronicle that they plan to reserve part of the beds for coronavirus patients and the other part for the typhoon injured. He said he’s preparing for another wave of coronavirus patients. “People pass to pass shelters and close spaces confined by the typhoon,” Varon said. “People stop by to get sick, that’s for sure.”
More than a hundred new COVID-19 instances connected to the large Sturgis motorcycle rally held before this month in South Dakota. Thousands of cyclists attended the rally and went unnoticed to distance themselves socially or wear masks. Similar cases were discovered to collection in South Dakota, Minnesota and six other states. Several other people were hospitalized. “We look forward to seeing many more relevant cases with Sturgis,” said Kris Ehresmann, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Minnesota Department of Health. “Thousands more people attended this event, so we’re very likely to see more transmission.” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump’s Republican and senior trump’s ajorme, said earlier that her state prides itself on hosting the annual collection. NBC News contacted its spokesperson to comment on the accumulation of coronavirus cases relevant to the collections.
Corky Siemaszko is senior editor of NBC News Digital.
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