Trump is trying to move on. So are state governments. But the novel coronavirus isn’t finished with us yet. In Florida and Texas, hospitals are nearing capacity; to the west, Arizona sets case records. Behind the case counts and hospitalizations, deaths follow, and once again the toll will fall heaviest on the elderly. The virus is lethal for senior adults, but not only because the immune system weakens with age. Though most seniors live at home, adults older than 65 make up just over 83 percent of all nursing-home residents, and 93.4 percent of residents in assisted-living facilities. In these so-called congregate settings, COVID-19 spreads like quicksilver, and can claim dozens in weeks.

By mid-May, around 5,000 nursing-home residents in the State of New York had died from COVID-19. Elsewhere, matters were equally grim. By mid-June, ProPublica recently reported, the virus had claimed 5 percent of all nursing-home residents in Michigan. The total was even higher in New Jersey, where the virus killed 12 percent of the state’s nursing-home residents in the same time frame. Rising case totals in Arizona and Florida promise future suffering for the elderly. Both states are home to rapidly graying populations. Whether they live at home on their own, or in care with other people, for the elderly the next few weeks may be among the most critical of their lives.