In Texas, the number of inpatients is increasing slowly but surely since the long weekend of Memorial Day, at the end of may, which traditionally marks the beginning of the summer and has seen a rush to the beaches.
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June 12, 2020 14h02
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United states : the first wave that never ends
Ivan Crown
Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON — From one end to the other of the United States, more than a dozen States to record in this moment the greatest number of new cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, but Donald Trump and many local officials refuse any kind of alarmism, and exclude a new containment.
The us epidemic has shifted from New York and from north-east to a wide band covering the south and west, and the eyes are now focused on the hospitals in Arizona, Texas or Florida, in a State where the president comes from to move the celebration in August of its designation as expected as a candidate of the republican party. This great mass was to be held in North Carolina, but the new coronavirus is circulating actively, the local authorities had required a reduced format and the port of the mask, unacceptable for Donald Trump.
The courts have made a break in the déconfinement : the city of Nashville, or the State of Oregon, on the Pacific coast. Its governor has announced a one week break in the process of reopening started a month ago, after a resurgence of the virus both in urban and rural areas.
The map of the United States today is largely colored in red on the site Covidexitstrategy.org : the majority of american States do not meet the criteria for reopening defined by the White House, and have more and more new cases reported every day, of hospital capacities that reduce and screening tests are inadequate.
While the country has reached 100 000 dead official COVID-19 on 28 may, it is likely to reach 130 000 by the national holiday of July 4, according to an average of multiple models in epidemiology. And Youyang Gu, a modeller independent forecasts have proved very accurate, provides 200 000 dead by 1 October.
“The pandemic is not over,” insisted the director of the Centres for prevention and disease control (CDC), Robert Redfield, by posting instructions (optional) to the U.s. eager to resume their activities in safety, first and foremost : a distance of six feet (about two metres) and wearing a mask in public.
The government of Mr. Trump admits the appearance of a few homes. But there is no question of closing the economy in the event of a second wave, insist officials of his administration.
By the way, was repeated Friday’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow, on Fox News : “there was no emergency. There is no second wave”.
Hot spots
The development of screening tests contributes to the evidence on the rise in the number of cases reported on a daily basis : many are mild or asymptomatic.
In Florida, where Donald Trump has a private residence, the governor is talking about an increase “modest” and explained that hospitalizations are stable, far from the peaks observed in New York.
At the national level, the CDC say that the hospitalizations, the real indicator of the progress of the epidemic, remain in decline. Where they increase, this is not “dramatic,” said Jay Butler, head COVID-19, “but this does not mean that we are not concerned”.
In Arizona, the number of cases has surged, and 78 % of the beds in the icu are occupied, a record. The large city of Phoenix has become a “hot spot”.
“We’ve reopened too much too soon, our hospitals have really hurt”, said the mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, at a conference of the Center for American Progress.
It is also the case in Texas, where the number of inpatients is increasing slowly but surely since the long weekend of Memorial Day, at the end of may, which traditionally marks the beginning of the summer and has seen a rush to the beaches. The number of deaths in this State fortunately has not jumped up, but this shows that the epidemic is progressing actually.
Despite the resurgence, the public authorities seem to consider that their citizens will bear more of the new restrictive measures, although the containment has been largely supported by the population according to a survey conducted by the CDC in early may and released on Friday.
In South Carolina, the governor has said that he did not include the mandatory wearing of the mask and close to shops.
“At this stage, the answer is individual responsibility,” said Henry McMaster.
