But while it’s true that the number of daily tests has increased from 4,200 to 7,900 over the past two weeks, the rate at which those tests are coming back positive is also increasing. Doug Ducey’s administration points to increased testing capacity to explain the state’s numbers. The state has not required all individuals to wear masks in public, but workers who interact with the public are expected to have a mask. Arizona began to reopen gyms, restaurants, and other businesses in mid-May. Public health experts in the state have blamed the relaxing of social distancing for the spread, as the Arizona Republic reported. The state’s top health official asked hospitals to activate their emergency plans for increasing their bed capacity. The state’s largest health system has warned that its intensive care unit is filling up. Test positivity rate: 12.7 percent (increased from 7.7 percent two weeks ago)Īrizona has quickly become the most closely watched state in the country. (Eric Topol, a top medical scientist, came up with a very similar list on Twitter.) All data pulled on Wednesday, June 10. With that in mind, I asked public health experts across the country which coronavirus hot spots they are watching and worrying about. “The virus is getting highways along which to transmit.” “The thing about all of these places is not that these increases are definitely tied to reopening or partying over Memorial Day weekend, though they might be, but that in the face of increasing numbers of case counts, the continued relaxation will only provide more opportunity for community transmission,” William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, said. But if a state’s rate of positive tests is rising, or if the number of hospitalizations is going up, that is better evidence of increased spread.Īnd looking ahead, the continued easing of social distancing could serve to exacerbate these trends. We would expect cases to increase along with testing. One other consideration: Raw case counts alone might not tell you much about a state’s Covid-19 situation. Exponential spread that risks overwhelming the hospitals in the state, and requires the reinstitution of strict social distancing measures, is the worst-case scenario. What’s most important is whether a state health system maintains enough hospital capacity that it can treat all the coronavirus patients - and other patients - it has. It is a question of trade-offs: How much new coronavirus spread is “worth” alleviating the costs of the economic shutdown? Unfortunately, there is a good amount of evidence that is exactly what is happening.Ī couple of things to be mindful of as we track Covid-19 after reopening: First, states certainly expected some additional spread once people began going back to restaurants and resuming other normal activities. If reopening the economy were going to lead to more coronavirus spread, states would likely just now be starting to feel the effects, with rising case counts, higher positive-test rates, and increasingly strained hospitals.
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