White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that there were early signs of the coronavirus outbreak in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Dr. Fauci said that the so-called positivity rate, or the percentage of tests run that produce positive, seems to be increasing in those states. He reiterated that this is among the early signs that the coronavirus outbreak is worsening. It has been said that an increasing positivity rate cannot be blamed on expanded testing.
“That’s a surefire sign that you’ve got to be really careful,” Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Coronavirus outbreaks that spread through the South have manifested signs of slowing after states postponed or halted reopening plans, based on a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases were increasing by over 10% in Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee as of Monday on a seven-day average compared with a week ago.
Kentucky and Ohio posted a record number of Covid-19 hospitalizations, based on a seven-day average, a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project shows.
White House health advisor Dr. Deborah Birx previously visited states where federal health officials hope to “control the pandemic before it gets worse,” she said, such as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. “This current group of states ... are the next set of states where we have significant concerns about the rising test positivity rate and the rising number of cases,” Birx said at a press conference in Kentucky on Sunday after meeting with Gov. Andy Beshear.
Birx said that the coronavirus outbreak is starting to spread in more rural areas, an indication that people are bringing the coronavirus back to their places after visiting other cities. She added there are states that must close bars and prohibit indoor gatherings to 10 people or less.
“We can see what is happening in the South moving North,” Birx said.
Reopening states
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is urging states to start reopening their businesses if the spread of coronavirus cases is showing signs of slowing.
“I really do believe a lot of the governors should be opening up states that are not opening,” Trump said during a coronavirus briefing from the Bioprocess Innovation Center at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Morrisville, North Carolina. “We’ll see what happens with them.”
Trump hailed the new data at the press briefing. “Over the weekend, cases in Florida, Texas and Arizona held steady and are now heading down. In Arizona, they are heading down and very substantially down,” he said.
Closing the country
The total US coronavirus death toll may reach 175,000 by August 15, based on an ensemble forecast by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Local leaders such as Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti believe a second stay-at-home order could happen again with hospitals being at full capacity and testing facing delays.
More than 150 prominent medical experts, nurses, scientists and other experts supported such call by signing a letter to urge leaders to close the country again and start over to curb the spread of the virus.
“Right now, we are on a path to lose more than 200,000 American lives by November 1st. Yet, in many states people can drink in bars, get a haircut, eat inside a restaurant, get a tattoo, get a massage, and do myriad other normal, pleasant, but non-essential activities,” read the letter addressed to the Trump administration, members of Congress and state governors.
