U.S. faces uneasy crossroads on COVID-19 before holidays

The U.S. recovery from the crushing delta wave of the coronavirus is beginning to stall out, with case counts stuck around 70,000 per day for two weeks after a precipitous decline from the peak of the Sun Belt surge in September.

A drop in hospitalizations, a key metric as people begin to “live with” the virus and vaccinated persons fend off breakthrough infections, also appears to be slowing around the 45,000 mark.

The Mountain West is seeing some of the biggest surges, with states like Montana and Wyoming accounting for...