US sees summer spike in coronavirus cases as states reopen

The United States could be approaching a worrying rise in coronavirus infections after widespread protests and business reopenings have created the opportunity of resurgence to the deadly virus, experts warn.

About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with a rising number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds, fanning concerns that the reopening of the US economy may lead to a second wave of infections.

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The rally in global stocks came crashing down on Thursday over worries of a pandemic resurgence. The last time the S&P 500 and Dow fell as much in one day was in March, when US coronavirus cases began surging.

A recent spike in cases in about a dozen states partially reflects increased testing. But many of those states are also seeing rising hospitalisations and some are beginning to run short on intensive care unit (ICU) beds.

Texas has seen record hospitalisations for three days in a row, and in North Carolina, only 13 percent of the state’s ICU beds are available due to severe COVID-19 cases. 

Houston‘s mayor said the city was ready to turn its NFL stadium into a makeshift hospital if necessary.

Arizona has seen a record number of hospitalisations at 1,291. The state health director told hospitals this week to activate emergency plans and increase ICU capacity.

About three-quarters of the state’s ICU beds are filled, according to the state website.

“You’re really crossing a threshold in Arizona,” Jared Baeten, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, told Reuters news agency.

“The alarming thing would be if the numbers start to rise in places that have clearly already peaked and are on their downtrend,” he said, referring to New York and other northeastern states where new cases and deaths have plummeted.

Health experts worry there could be a further rise in infections from nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality that packed people together starting two weeks ago.

‘Precipice of disaster’

Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posted rises in new cases of 40 percent or higher for the week ended June 7, compared with the prior seven days, according to a Reuters analysis. New cases rose in Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina by more than 30 percent in the past week.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, told Canada’s CBC News that more cases are inevitable as restrictions are lifted.

“We also as a whole have been going down with cases,” Fauci said. “But I think what you mentioned about some states now having an increase in the number of cases makes one pause and be a little bit concerned.”

Oregon’s governor halted reopenings for seven days after the state saw the largest single-day increase in cases since the pandemic began.

Even if hospitals are not overwhelmed by coronavirus cases, more hospitalisations mean more deaths in the coming weeks and months, Spencer Fox, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin, told Reuters.

“We are starting to see very worrying signs about the course the pandemic is taking in cities and states in the US and around the world,” he said. “When you start seeing those signs, you need to act fairly quickly.”

Total coronavirus deaths in the US were close to 114,000 on Friday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally – by far the most in the world.

That figure could exceed 200,000 at some point in September, Ashish Jha, the head of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, told CNN.

Jha said the US was the only major country to reopen without getting its case growth to a controlled level – defined as a rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus remaining at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days. Nationally, that figure has been between 4 percent and 7 percent in recent weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.

Health officials have stressed that wearing masks in public and keeping physically apart can greatly reduce transmissions, but many states have not required masks.

“I want the reopening to be successful,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top executive for the county that encompasses Houston, told reporters. “But I’m growing increasingly concerned that we may be approaching the precipice of a disaster.”