Preslie Paur breaks down in tears

when she thinks of her state’s refusal

to mandate face masks.

The South Salt Lake City, Utah,

woman can’t work at her special education

job due to an autoimmune

disease. Her husband, also a special

ed teacher, recently quit because

his school district would not allow

him to work remotely to protect her

and their 5-year-old son, who has

asthma.

“I feel forgotten,” Paur said.

“We’re living in a world we no longer

fit in. We did everything right.

We went to college, we got jobs,

we tried to give back to our community,

and now our community is

not giving back to us. And I’m very

scared.”

As President Donald Trump

barnstorms the swing states, often

downplaying the coronavirus pandemic

before largely unmasked

crowds, the nation continues to

lurch toward what his opponent Joe

Biden, citing health experts, warned

will be a “dark winter” of disease

and death.

White House Chief of Staff Mark

Meadows told CNN on Sunday that

“we’re not going to control the pandemic.”

Asked why, he said it’s

“because it is a contagious virus just

like the flu.”

Vice President Mike Pence will

continue campaigning despite his

chief of staff testing positive for

COVID-19. His office said Pence

and his wife both tested negative for

the virus Sunday.

About half of U.S. states have

seen their highest daily infection

numbers so far at some point in October,

and the country as a whole

came very close to back-to-back record

daily infection rates on Friday

and Saturday.

Data from Johns Hopkins University

shows that 83,718 new cases

were reported Saturday, just shy

of the 83,757 infections reported

Friday. Before that, the most cases

reported in the United States on a

single day had been 77,362, on July

16.

The Institute for Health Metrics

and Evaluation at the University of

Washington, which federal health

officials have used as a source

for their pandemic projections,

currently forecasts that the U.S.

COVID-19 death toll could exceed

318,000 by Jan. 1.

As of Sunday, there were more

than 8.6 million confirmed infections

in the U.S., with deaths climbing

to over 225,000, according to

the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource

Center.

At least seven states — Alaska,

Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New

Mexico, Ohio and Oklahoma —

saw record high infection levels

Saturday. And some Northeastern

states hit hard in the spring are seeing

numbers bounce back; New Jersey’s

toll of 1,909 new infections

Saturday was the most it had seen in

a day since early May.

The virus also is surging in the

Mountain West, especially Idaho

and Utah.

In Twin Falls, Idaho, new data

suggest that 1 in 24 residents has

contracted the coronavirus, said Dr.

Joshua Kern, vice president of medical

affairs at St. Luke’s Magic Valley

Medical Center. Amid a crush

of new cases, the hospital brought

in nurses from Boise, scaled back

elective surgery and, as of Friday,

stopped admitting pediatric patients.

“It’s gotten kind of out of hand,”

Kern told The Associated Press.

“We’ve had something like a third

of our total COVID cases in our

community in the last two to three

weeks. There are a lot of parts of the

state suffering under the same burden.”

Kern said Twin Falls had been

lulled into complacency after

months of relatively low numbers,

adding “going back to school was

the signal to our communities that

we can get back to normal.”

“It’s like the community said,

‘Oh, good. It’s over. We can party

again,’ and we saw the virus increase,”

he said. “This week, we

went to the coffee shop to get pastries

for our group, and it was closed

because of COVID. And we knew

that the week before, they had been

in there unmasked.”

Mark Chidichimo, a retired FBI

agent, said his sister, brother-in-law,

brother, nephew and 92-year-old

father in Idaho have all been diagnosed

with COVID-19 in the last

three weeks.

Chidichimo, who lives in New

Jersey, had nothing but praise for

St. Luke’s in Twin Falls, but said

his brother was told that if he needed

hospitalization, he’d be sent to Seattle,

more than 600 miles away.

“Hey, Idaho. This is coming from

someone who has been there, done

that: You really want to avoid this

if you can,” he said. “It’s going to

be really bad, and I pray to God that

none of my family members have to

be hospitalized. Because if they do, I

don’t know if they’ll survive.”

After months of improvement,

parts of Europe are going back into

lockdown or ramping up restrictions

again amid a spike in infections.

Italy imposed at least a month of

new restrictions across the country

on Sunday, insisting that people outdoors

wear masks, shutting down

gyms, pools and movie theaters, and

putting an early curfew on cafes and

restaurants.

German Health Minister Jens

Spahn, who tested positive Wednesday,

pleaded with citizens to wear

masks as the virus spikes across the

country and hospital ICUs are filling

up again.

“Please continue to help and

don’t listen to those who play down

(coronavirus),” he said. “It is serious