Covid is devastating US, leaving uneven toll, more questions than answers

The United States saw the most new coronavirus cases of the pandemic on Thursday, with deaths and hospitalizations also rising. Underlying conditions largely determine who survives.

The United States is winding up a particularly devastating week, one of the very worst since the coronavirus pandemic began nine months ago.

On Thursday, a national single-day record was set, with more than 217,000 new cases. It was one of many data points that illustrated the depth and spread of a virus that has killed more than 278,000 people in this country, more than the entire population of Lubbock, Texas, or Modesto, Calif.,