The coronavirus has been spreading north of the Sun Belt in recent days, creating alarm among public health officials who fear states are not doing enough.
An internal FEMA memo obtained by ABC News reports that new cases are going down but deaths are surging. In the seven days ending Monday, new cases nationwide have decreased 0.6% from the previous week but that time period also saw a 30.1% increase in deaths from the disease and deaths have been increasing steadily in recent days. Major League Baseball suspended the Miami Marlins’ season through Sunday because of an outbreak that has spread to at least 15 of the team’s players, and a series of games this week between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies was called off as a precaution. States like Florida, Arizona and Texas are in dire condition, and the virus also has been spreading farther north in recent days, causing alarm among public health officials who fear states are not doing enough to avoid catastrophic outbreaks like those in the Sun Belt.”We are watching very carefully California, Arizona, Texas, and most of Florida,” President Donald Trump said at a news conference. “It’s starting to head down to the right direction.”Florida, however, reported another one-day high for COVID-19 deaths, with 191, while Arizona recorded 104, and Arkansas had a daily record of 20. While the White House has begun to feel cautiously optimistic that the resurgence has begun to stabilize in parts of the Southwest, fears are growing about the potential for a significant uptick in the Midwest, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Colorado, according to a Trump administration official who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. It’s fueled largely by a rise in cases among young adults, who have been hitting bars, restaurants and health clubs again. Over the past two weeks, Wisconsin’s rolling average number of new confirmed cases has increased by 31%. Minnesota reported its largest one-day case count Sunday, with more than 860 cases. The virus is blamed for over 4.3 million confirmed infections and about 150,000 deaths in the U. S., according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Globally, more than 16.5 million people have been infected, and more than 655,000 have died. The numbers are thought to be higher because of limits on testing.
