The US's new surge in coronavirus cases, explained
The past week gave America an ugly reminder that the threat of the coronavirus pandemic is far from over. Cases are rapidly rising again. The nation on Wednesday hit a new record for daily new infections, and then hit another record the next day.
There’s some debate about whether this is the “second wave” of infections, or whether it’s a continuation of the first wave that began in early 2020 and never really ended. But what’s clear is the US is now suffering from a rapid rise in coronavirus cases. So far, that’s yet to translate to a rising death toll, likely because rises and falls in deaths tend to lag behind rises and falls in overall cases.
But between Monday and Thursday, the US went from nearly 31,000 reported cases in one day to more than 41,000. Arizona, Florida, Texas, and several other states in the South and West are among the hardest hit.
Donald Trump and his allies have suggested that the increase is due to a spike in testing, but the data doesn’t bear that out. The number of cases has increased more quickly than the number of tests, with the percentage of tests that are coming back positive — an indicator of the seriousness of an outbreak — rising above 10, 15, and even 20 percent in some states. (The recommended positive rate is below 5 percent.)
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So what went wrong? The simple answer is states started to relax the restrictions and reopen their economies — giving employers, employees, and their patrons a chance to go back out into the world and interact, fueling new cases.
It’s possible to lift restrictions slowly and safely, and a few states are meeting the benchmarks that experts recommend to do that. But most never fully controlled their outbreaks, instead forging ahead with reopening.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-uss-new-surge-in-coronavirus-cases-explained/ar-BB162ob2?li=BBnb7Kz