COVID-19 cases surge in 19 states as pandemic continues

Arizona is one of the 19 states seeing a surge in coronavirus cases, according to CNN. As of Monday, Mississippi had 498 new coronavirus cases, breaking its previous single-day record of 439. while South Carolina also hit a new high for the third time in the past four days.

Because of the rise in COVID-19 cases, Arizona health officials are asking hospitals to activate emergency plans. Arizona’s Director of Health Services Dr. Cara Christ asked that hospitals “be judicious” in elective surgeries to ensure bed capacity. “We know Covid-19 is still in our community, and we expect to see increased cases,” the Arizona Department of Health Services tweeted Tuesday night.

Hot spots in a number of states in the South helped to push the number of new infections across the country in the first week of June up 3.0 percent. This was the first increase after five weeks of declines, according to the analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, reports Reuters.

There has been more testing of the population recently. Nationally, over 545,000 tests were reported in a single day last week, a new record. Some states have seen a jump in the rate of positive coronavirus tests. Arizona saw a rise of 12 percent in the week ended June 7, up from 7 percent a month ago, while in Utah, the positive test rate rose to 9 percent from 4 percent.

Bodies are moved to a refrigeration truck serving as a temporary morgue in New York, the main focus of the US outbreak, with more than 4,750 deaths

Bryan R. Smith, AFP

Nationally, the rate of positive tests has hovered between 4 percent and 7 percent for several weeks. There is some indication that expanded testing is catching more cases, however, public health experts say that in reality, the surges are due to states’ reopening and people’s relaxing their social distancing protocols.

“The surge numbers are real,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the Columbia University National Center for Disaster Preparedness, who is a public health analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.

Dr. Redlener said more testing will inevitably give us more positive tests, “but to deny the fact that we’re having an ongoing pandemic with continued spread is contrary to all evidence that we have and everything that we know about the behavior of the virus.”