Nearly three months since the U.S. declared a national emergency over the new coronavirus, some states are reporting a rise in new cases as they lift restrictions meant to slow the virus’s spread.
California, Utah, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Texas, among others, have all logged rises in confirmed cases, according to a Johns Hopkins tabulation of a five-day moving average. Meantime, New York City, the U.S. area hit hardest by the pandemic, has seen a drop in cases and deaths and plans to begin reopening its economy Monday.
“It’s a very mixed picture,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, an infectious-disease specialist and epidemiologist at Columbia University. “In some places we have made amazing progress, and there are other places where I remain very concerned about what’s going on.”
The U.S.’s overall daily count of new coronavirus cases has declined steadily in recent weeks. It is now hovering around 20,000, down from a peak of more than 30,000 in April, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Daily deaths are also trending downward, and overall testing continues to increase gradually.
The overall drop in new cases in the U.S. is largely because of progress in heavy-hit states. Some states, including Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York continue a decline in daily cases. Others are logging increases or remain relatively steady.
“If you take out the impact of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and so on, you’d have a much more worrisome picture of what’s happening in the U.S.,” El-Sadr said.