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Operation Warp Speed, a Trump administration initiative to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines as fast as possible, should be lauded as a successful endeavour in what has otherwise been a poor effort to deal with the coronavirus, experts say. "No doubt, Operation Warp Speed is a huge success," said Tinglong Dai, associate professor of Operations Management and Business Analytics at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School in Baltimore.

As coronavirus ravages the U.S. population, the disease may be taking uninfected people with it. More people died from March through May this year than died last year, even after stripping out the numbers of people who have succumbed to COVID-19, according to a new study out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Researchers have identified increases in deaths during the pandemic compared with previous years. Although this is not surprising in itself, many of these excess deaths are not due to COVID-19. The authors of a new study took a look at the demographics of this increase.

The seven-day University of Wisconsin coronavirus percent positive rose to 2.9% on Wednesday. UW’s two largest residence halls, Sellery and Witte, required mandatory testing Monday amid these rising cases. University Spokesperson Meredith McGlone said in an interview the Wisconsin State Journal that UW has modified the testing process to quickly identify rises in cases and case clusters.

As COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths surge, experts see no sign of the increases slowing down unless there are some major changes. “It took about seven and a half months or so get to the first 100,000 cases in Wisconsin,” said Ajay Sethi, assistant professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It took about 36 days only to get the next 100,000 cases. We’re on track to getting the next 100,000 cases 20 days later.”