The coronavirus outbreak in the United States is continuing to increase in an alarming rate, causing some states in the Southern and Western half of the country to pause their reopening plans to help contain their outbreaks. The state health departments around the country reported a total of over 38,000 new daily infections on Wednesday, a rate that the country has not seen since the pandemic reached its shores a few months ago.
Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, Dr. Ashish Jha, stated in an interview with the "Today" show on Thursday that the main cause of the acceleration of the United States cases is due to the rushed effort to restart the nation's economy without taking needed safety and health precautions.
"We had hoped that we would be able to keep the virus at bay for a while, but we are seeing these resurgences, largely because we opened up too quickly, and we opened up without the right safeguards in place," Jha stated. "And I'm worried that we're going to see increases in the number of cases in the days and weeks ahead."
The increases in cases in the state of Texas has caused Governor Greg Abbott to halt the phased lifting of social restrictions and reimpose a ban on elective surgeries to free up hospital beds in some areas of the state, according to the Associated Press. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham also paused their reopening efforts as cases in their respective states surge at an alarming rate.
Total Global Cases: Over 9.7 Million
Total Deaths: Over 491,000
Total Recovered: Over 5.2 Million
C.D.C. Report
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday estimated that 20 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the outbreak in the United States, almost 10 times the amount of the 2.3 million confirmed cases on country currently has.
"Our best estimate right now is that for every case that's reported, there actually are 10 other infections," C.D.C. Director Robert Redfield stated during a call to reporters on Thursday, according to The Washington Post. The estimate is based on coronavirus antibodies found in blood samples collected from donors around the country. Redfield also determined that between 92% to 95% of the United States population is still at risk of infection.
C.D.C. officials noted that the new infections in the Southern and Western states are being increased by higher infection rates from younger people, attributing the data to broader testing of people under 50.
"We're in a different situation today than we were in March and April where the virus was disproportionately being recognized in older adults," Redfield added.
