US records more than 11 million cases as Michigan and Washington State impose restrictions

Joe Biden’s election victory signals new seriousness in dealing with rising infections, as several states bring in curbs

Michigan and Washington are the latest US states to announced strict curbs on movement, as the number of coronavirus cases surpassed 11 million nationwide.

The most recent million cases have all come in the past week alone, as health officials advise Americans to forego or revise their Thanksgiving holiday plans to help stop the rapid spread of the disease.

Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has ordered high schools and colleges to stop in-person teaching, suspended organised sports and banned restaurants from offering any indoor dining for the next three weeks.

Fellow Democrat Jay Inslee, governor of Washington, announced his state would enforce even tighter restrictions on businesses and social gatherings for the next month. Gyms and cinemas will be required to close, while restaurants and bars will be limited to outdoor dining and to-go services.

Retail stores in the northwest state will be ordered to limit indoor capacity, and multiple households will banned from meeting each other indoors — unless they have quarantined for 14 days or tested negative for Covid and quarantined for a week.  

President-elect Joe Biden’s team has claimed that Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat and offer traditional transition assistance could potentially hamper efforts to combat the virus. “Our experts need to talk to those people as soon as possible so nothing drops in this change of power we’re going to have on January 20th,” said chief of staff Ron Klain.

Yet measures brought in by governors in Michigan, Washington and several other states in recent days suggest Mr Biden’s victory has signalled a new kind of seriousness in dealing with rising infections.

Republican governors in Ohio, West Virginia, Iowa, North Dakota and Utah have all now issued mandates urging citizens to wear masks. Residents in Wisconsin and Nevada have been asked to stay at home for the next two weeks to avoid a return to stricter curbs.

The moves follow milestones passed by Texas and California last week, as the states each marked more than one million confirmed Covid cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

Washington state governor Jay Inslee (Gov Jay Inslee)

In Texas, sporting events were cancelled and at least one city added mobile morgues in anticipation of hospital-overwhelming virus deaths. Meanwhile, in California, officials urged those planning any holiday gatherings to take strict precautions, including keeping visits small, outdoors and under two hours long.

Mr Biden’s top coronavirus adviser said on Friday there weren’t any plans for a national lockdown under the incoming administration. “We’re not in a place where we’re saying shut the whole country down,” Dr Vivek Murthy, now on the president-elect’s coronavirus advisory team.

Ms Whitmer has previously faced criticism from Michigan’s Republican-led legislature, which authorised a lawsuit earlier this year challenging her authority to combat the pandemic. In October, the FBI said she was the target of a kidnapping plot spurred on by anger over her earlier measures.

“The situation has never been more dire,” said the Michigan governor of the latest state rules. “We are at the precipice and we need to take some action.”

As of Sunday, Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker has reached 11 million after topping 10 million cases on 9 November, with the most recent million coming in just six days.

On average, more than 1,000 Americans are dying with the virus each day. The overall US death toll is getting close to 250,000.