Coronavirus cases are rising by 10% or more compared with a week ago in 21 states.
An analysis of Johns Hopkins data by CNN finds that cases are increasing in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington state, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In 11 states, cases are declining, and, in 18, they are holding steady.
The current rate of increase suggests that a new wave may be forming.
“We really don’t know yet,” Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director at the American Public Health Association, told the Washington Examiner recently. “What we do know for sure is that we are going to have these peaks and episodic outbreaks.”
Benjamin pointed to children returning to school and people trying to return their lives to normal as the likely main causes of episodic outbreaks going forward.
The University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics model shows that the United States is currently experiencing 765 deaths daily from COVID-19. That could jump to 3,000 by December.
But not every model predicts a massive increase.
Data scientist Youyang Gu, whose models have been among the most accurate, predicts about 600 daily deaths by November. However, that is up from 500 in earlier forecasts.
“I don’t think individual dates and events have as big of an impact as people think,” Gu told the Washington Examiner recently. “For example, many people expected cases to spike up after Memorial Day or after protests, but that never materialized. The bigger drivers for a potential fall wave include virus seasonality, more time spent indoors, increased mobility as schools reopen and people return to work, and the potential loss of acquired immunity.”
