Public Health

Long-term exposure to high levels of air pollution may increase a COVID-19 patient's risk of death, according to a study published Nov. 4 in Science Advances.

The U.S. recorded more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases Nov. 4 — the first time the country has broken this threshold during the pandemic, reports The New York Times. 

About one-fifth of adults in the U.S. experienced chronic pain in 2019, with 7.4 percent reporting frequent high-impact chronic pain that prevented them from life or work activities, according to a new CDC report. 

Some COVID-19 patients who recover from the illness quickly may also develop a stronger and longer-lasting immune response to the virus, according to a study published in Cell. 

Flu activity is below the national baseline of 2.6 percent, with 1.2 percent of patient visits for flu-like illness, according to the CDC's FluView report for the week ending Oct. 24.

A T-cell response, or cellular immunity, was present in 100 people six months after their initial COVID-19 infection, according to a study published in the preprint server BioRxiv. 

Officials in El Paso, Texas, have opened a fourth mobile morgue while they probe whether the deaths of at least 85 people are related to COVID-19,  NPR reports. 

Over the past two weeks, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.S. has increased by more than 10,0000, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project cited by CNN.

While the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in New York City March 1, the virus was present as early as mid-February, and more than 1.7 million have been infected, according to a study published Nov. 3 in Nature.

The pandemic is entering "the most concerning and most deadly phase," Deborah Birx, MD, White House coronavirus response coordinator, wrote in a Nov. 2 private memo to White House officials, according to The New York Times.