While we’re all focused on vote counts, case counts have headed into unprecedented territory. “The United States reported 103,087 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the highest single-day total on record, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic. It marks the first time that the country—or any country in the world, for that matter—has documented more than 100,000 new cases in one day. At the same time, states reported that more than 52,000 people are hospitalized with the coronavirus, the highest level since early August. The number of people hospitalized nationwide is increasing faster in November than it did in October, and—over the past 10 days—their ranks have risen by about 1,000 people a day.” Robinson Meyer and Alexis Madgridal in The Atlantic: A Dreadful New Peak for the American Pandemic.

+ The situation is growing dire in Europe as well where England is on lockdown, France is setting new records, and Italy has hit its highest death toll since the dark days of April. And in “Denmark, the world’s largest mink producer, said on Wednesday that it plans to cull more than 15 million of the animals, due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines.” Danish Covid-19 mink variant could spark new pandemic, scientists warn.