TOM DEAN

Great Britain's Tom Dean was diagnosed with COVID for a second time just a few months ahead of the Olympic trials. Now he has two gold medals in Tokyo.

"I contracted COVID twice in the last 12 months," Brit Tom Dean said. "Sitting in my flat in isolation, an Olympic gold was a million miles away."

For the first time in more than a century, Britain claimed relay gold at the Olympic pool.

Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning.

Britain’s Tom Dean contracted COVID-19 not once but twice in the run-up to the Olympics.

COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have tumbled to an average of around 600 per day — the lowest level in 10 months — with the number of lives lost dropping to single digits in well over half the states and hitting zero on some days. “If there is a right combination of vaccine hesitancy, potentially new variants and quickly rolling back control measures that comes together, we could potentially screw this up and have yet another wave that is completely unnecessary at this point."

Dr. Tom Dean poses at his clinic in Wessington Springs, S.D., on Friday. Oct. 16, 2020. Dean is one of three doctors in the county, which has seen one of the nation's highest rates of coronavirus cases per person. He writes a column in the local newspaper, the True Dakotan, urging people to take precautions against the virus. (AP Photo/Stephen Groves)

– Rural Jerauld County in South Dakota didn't see a single case of the coronavirus for more than two months stretching from June to August. As the brunt of the virus has blown into the Upper Midwest and northern Plains, the severity of outbreaks in rural communities has come into focus. In recent weeks, he's watched as one in roughly every 37 people in his county has tested positive for the virus. As cases surge, hospitals in rural communities are having trouble finding beds. “It's very, very challenging when your resources are poor — living in a small, rural county,” she said.