A second wave of coronavirus is emerging in the U.S., and it’s raising alarms as new infections push the overall count past 2 million Americans.
According to a report by the Bloomberg News, in pockets across the U.S., a fresh onslaught of the novel coronavirus is bringing challenges for residents and the economy. These localized surges have raised concerns among experts even as the nation’s overall case count early this week rose just under 1%, the smallest increase since March, the report said. According to the report, these recent numbers are cause to question whether a new wave is about to occur:
- On Wednesday, Texas reported the highest one-day total since the pandemic emerged – 2,504 new coronavirus cases, and a 4.7% jump in hospitalizations to 2,153, the fourth consecutive daily increase.
- Florida, which is a month into its reopening, reported 8,553 new cases this week – the most of any seven-day period.
- A daily tally of new cases in Arizona has abruptly spiked in the last two weeks, hitting an all-time high of 1,187 on June 2.
- California’s hospitalizations have risen in nine of the past 10 days, and are at their highest since May 13.
“There is a new wave coming in parts of the country,” Eric Toner of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told Bloomberg News. “It’s small and it’s distant so far, but it’s coming.” Though the outbreaks come weeks into state reopenings, it’s not clear that they’re linked to increased economic activity, the report said. Whether the massive protests against police brutality that have erupted in the past two weeks have led to more infections, health experts say it’s still too soon to tell. In Georgia, hair salons, tattoo parlors and gyms have been operating for a month and a half, yet case numbers have plateaued, “flummoxing experts,” Bloomberg reports. Even within states, puzzling differences have shown up. For example, according to the report, in California, which imposed a stay-at-home order in late March, San Francisco saw zero cases for three consecutive days this week, while Los Angeles County reported well over half of the state’s new cases. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on a podcast that the White House Coronavirus Task Force has yet to see any relationship between reopening and increased cases of Covid-19. But in some states, the report said, rising numbers outpace increases in testing, raising concerns about whether the virus can be controlled. It will take a couple of weeks to know, Toner said, but by then “it’s going to be pretty late” to respond. The report said that experts see evidence of a second wave building in Arizona, Texas, Florida and California. Arizona “sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of a major problem,” said Jeffrey Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. As Arizona’s daily tally of new cases has abruptly spiked in the last two weeks, hitting an all-time high of 1,187 on June 2, its Department of Health Services, this week, urged hospitals to activate emergency plans. Director Cara Christ, told a Phoenix television station that she was concerned about the rising case count and percentage of people tested who are found to be positive, the report said. According to Michael White, chief medical officer at Valleywise Health, the public hospital system in Phoenix, in response to an increase in Covid-19 cases during the past two weeks, the intensive-care capacity has been expanded – and those beds are 87% full, about half with Covid patients, the report said.
“Within Phoenix, we’ve been more relaxed than I’ve seen in some of the other parts of the country,” White said, “with some people disregarding advice to wear masks and maintain six feet of distance from others. “People are coming together in environments where social distancing is challenging,” the report quoted.
Although the U.S. has long been bracing for another wave, future outbreaks are likely to take a different shape. “Social distancing and mask-wearing, as well as careful behavior by individuals, are likely to have staying power even as economies reopen,” the report said. Experts are steeling for autumn, when there could be damaging repercussions from changes in weather and back-to-school plans.
“The second wave isn’t going to mirror the first wave exactly,” said Lance Waller, a professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta. “It’s not snapping back to exactly the same thing as before, because we’re not exactly the way we were before,” Bloomberg News quoted. Bloomberg News reports that since the pandemic initially swept the U.S. starting early this year, 2 million people have been infected and more than 112,000 have died.