There's a silver lining in the national spike of coronavirus infections, but it may be a temporary one. Even as more than half of U.S. states, including Missouri, see a surge of coronavirus cases, deaths aren't currently on a similar upward swing.

The problem with taking too much solace from that is death rates have always lagged behind infection rates, but they eventually follow similar paths. Much of the infection surge now is among young people, which offers hope that deaths won't spike this time — unless those young people are currently infecting their parents and grandparents whose vulnerability would tend to be much more pronounced.

All scenarios point to the need to quit politicizing proven precautions like social distancing and wearing masks. Vice President Mike Pence has started setting the right example by masking up and urging others to. President Donald Trump continues to treat mask-wearing as if it's some personal affront to him, which endangers his own most fervent followers. Despite the new surge, Gov. Mike Parson refuses to issue a statewide masking requirement, oddly citing politicization of the issue.

The U.S. now has around 2.7 million coronavirus cases and more than 128,000 deaths — far more than any other nation. After what looked like a flattening of infections nationally, confirmed cases in America are back on the rise in more than 30 states, driven mainly by the largely red-state regions of the south and west.

Trump, Pence and others in the administration have claimed the uptick in confirmed cases is just the result of more testing. This is false. The data clearly shows it's not just the number of positive cases that are up, but the percentage of positive cases relative to the number of tests administered. The surge is real.

While some states — Texas, Arizona, California, a few others — are also setting new records for hospitalizations, Missouri's experience is, to date, more common: rising numbers of confirmed cases, but continuing decline in hospitalizations. This is great news, but whether it will last is the still-unanswered question.

The young people affected by this new surge are less likely to suffer symptoms but can still spread the virus. They must endeavor not to, even though it means taking precautions like wearing masks and distancing from their older family members.

If Trump suddenly had the urge to lead instead of behaving like the head of an anti-fact cult, he could have a real impact on which direction the fatality numbers go from here, just by setting the example of wearing a mask and encouraging others to do likewise.

As throughout the pandemic, America remains essentially rudderless. It's up to Americans themselves to heed the warning of this surge of cases — and prevent it from becoming a surge of death. Mask up.

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