She 'Let Her Guard' Down: Virus Batters New Jersey Nurse, Family

ACROSS AMERICA — Last month, Dora Matias was simply being kind when she offered an elderly friend with a cold a car ride.

By Thanksgiving, that simple act of kindness by her mother resulted in what Sofia Burke, a nurse from Elmwood Park, New Jersey, called a "superspreader event" within her large family.

Matias was always careful. She followed all health and safety guidelines, the 43-year-old Burke told CNN’s Don Lemon from her hospital bed on Wednesday. Both Matias and her friend wore masks inside her car, which had the windows down for extra ventilation, Burke added.

But she "let her guard down for one moment — one moment,” Burke said. "And in that swift moment, my entire family was affected.”

Burke and seven others in her household all tested positive for the coronavirus. Otto Bowless, Burke's 93-year-old father, died last week of complications from the disease, NorthJersey.com reported.

Burke told her story as she clutched an oxygen mask to her face. Every time she takes it off, her oxygen levels plummet.

“Right now I feel like everything has been swept from under my feet literally," Burke said. “Something so simple as breathing has become so difficult.”

Watch the full interview.

The Latest

Heading into the weekend, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed 278,000. Meanwhile, a recent outbreak that's killed 21 residents at a New Hampshire veterans home is shining a spotlight on a growing surge of cases in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states — a surge that in many places is exceeding the one last spring.

New Hampshire is now averaging almost 600 cases a day, according to The New York Times, roughly six times its highest previous average reached in May. Hospitalizations are also at record levels.

Cases are escalating across the region. Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey all set single-day case records on Thursday, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey did so on Friday as well.

More than 50,000 cases have been identified in Pennsylvania in the past seven days, the most in any week of the pandemic.

The Midwest, on the other hand, is showing signs of progress as the virus spread slows.

Seven states in the Midwest have seen a sustained decrease in case numbers over the past 14 days, according to the Times, something health experts say is not necessarily definitive but undeniably encouraging.

Cases in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota all began climbing after Labor Day, as cold weather pushed people in the Midwest indoors.

Nationally, things are looking worse. The United States reported more than 229,000 new cases and nearly 2,600 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging Americans to practice "universal" mask use when indoors anywhere outside their homes.

In a new report, the CDC recommended that officials at the state and local level "issue policies or directives mandating universal use of face masks in indoor (nonhousehold) settings" as one strategy to combat the virus.

The CDC again called mask use a key step to fighting the virus, warning the United States has "entered a phase of high-level transmission."

In California, millions of people in several Bay Area counties are subject to a strict stay-at-home order that goes into effect over the weekend. The order covers Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, as well as the city of Berkeley.

Health officers for five Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley announced the regional shelter-in-place health order at a joint news conference Friday afternoon. It comes just one day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled plans for a regional stay-at-home order — the strictest since this spring — to combat a surge in cases and hospitalizations for COVID-19.

READ MORE: Bay Area Shutdown Order: Health Officers Unite, Act Decisively

New data from the Associated Press shows Americans just couldn't resist traveling over Thanksgiving, driving only slightly less than a year ago and largely ignoring the pleas of public health experts who begged them to forgo holiday travel.

While vehicle travel in early November was as much as 20 percent lower than a year earlier, it surged around the holiday and peaked on Thanksgiving Day at only about 5 percent less than the same pandemic-free period in 2019, according to StreetLight Data, which provided an analysis to AP.

Finally, the island kingdom of Bahrain said Friday it has become the second nation in the world to grant an emergency-use authorization for the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, AP reported.

The state-run Bahrain News Agency made the announcement on Friday night. Bahrain follows the United Kingdom, which made a similar announcement on Wednesday.

Bahrain did not say how may vaccines it has purchased, nor when vaccinations would begin. It did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press.

Newest Numbers

At least 2,595 new coronavirus deaths and more than 229,668 new cases were reported in the United States on Friday, according to a Washington Post database. Over the past seven days, the United States has averaged more than 181,100 cases each day.

As of Saturday, 44 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

Just under 14.4 million people in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Friday evening, and more than 279,200 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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