June 10th 2020

By Mark Sumner

Daily Kos

Now that Boris Johnson has shepherded the United Kingdom into the top four countries for COVID-19 cases, the most infected nations in the world are: the United States, Brazil, Russia, and the U.K. Also known as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Vladimir Putin, and Boris Johnson. That Donald Trump and his three tightest international buddies should end up topping the charts on infection and death is no coincidence. Don and the Trumpettes share an attitude that says they know more than the doctors, more than the scientists. Hundreds of thousands of people have died to feed their egos … so far.

But it’s not just the world that is seeing a fresh influx of cases. Inside the U.S., states that were quick to shrug off social distancing guidelines—and those that never really implemented them in the first place—are seeing a surge of new cases. More than a dozen states have reported their peak number of cases, not in March or April, but in the last week. And in some states, like Arizona and Texas, the growing number of cases is leading to a surge in hospitalizations that is threatening to crack apart health care systems just when many people were beginning to relax.

The frustration that many feel about maintaining social distancing guidelines, especially remaining at home whenever possible, and staying out of stores and restaurants, has led large numbers of Americans, even those who were being very diligent in their practices a month ago, to relax their practice. An apparent decline in cases, and a definite decline in media coverage, has given many the impression that the worst is over, that COVID-19 is on the way out, and that it’s safe to go back to something approximating “normal.”

It’s true that the 1,093 deaths recorded in the U.S. on Tuesday is way down from the 2,693 deaths recorded on April 21. It’s also true that, week over week, the number of deaths has been dropping. 

But the majority of that decline can be attributed to one thing, or rather, to one state: New York. That state is now generating less than 100 deaths each day, when at the peak of the initial outbreak in New York City, more than 1,000 people a day were dying. That single change in the numbers was enough to make it seem that the United States had beaten back its COVID-19 problem. This is absolutely not the case.

Where the United States is now is almost exactly where it was on March 31. That was a day that also saw just over 1,000 deaths. What happened from there is that the number of deaths continued up. Then up. Because on March 31, most states had either just issued a statewide lockdown, or had yet to issue such a plan. When the growth in new cases in the United States was first arrested, then began to slow around the end of April, it was specifically because of the use of social distancing efforts put in place a month earlier.

Those governors who were anxious to reopen, and those people who were in a hurry to eat in a restaurant, or gather at the beach, or have a big party felt safe enough because … things were better, right? And they’re still feeling basically okay now. Mostly.

But where we are now is just like March 31. Only no state is prepared to issue new lockdown guidelines. More people are already hospitalized, meaning that fewer beds—and specifically fewer ICU beds—are available to absorb any fresh surge of patients. The coronavirus task force is not appearing on television every day and the media is not leading every news cast with concerns over the virus. Across the country, hospital beds are already occupied with patients who have yet to recover from the disease, as well as those still staggering in. And COVID-19 is far more widely and generally disseminated now, with millions of cases in the U.S. alone.

Arizona is in a state of high alert as 76% of ICU beds are already occupied. North Carolina now has more people hospitalized for the disease than at any point in the pandemic. States like Texas are experiencing their sharpest increase in cases right now. Ditto Florida. No matter how many times Donald Trump lavishes praise on the Sunshine State (and no matter how many supplies were redirected to that state after being taken from other states), this past week has been Florida’s worst week for cases. And when it comes to deaths, it’s still impossible to tell what’s happening there because Governor Ron DeSantis has been practicing a campaign of deception. 

Those numbers have been growing not just in states that were quick to reopen, but in places like California where the percentage of people following stay-at-home guidelines and avoiding locations like beaches crumbled in parts of the state long before any official action was taken. Most of those who have taken place in the wholly necessary protests following the murder of George Floyd have been careful to wear masks and take what precautions they could. Many of those who are gathering at Lake of the Ozarks and the Olive Garden aren’t just refusing to wear masks, they’re actively fighting against actions to protect public health.

There is no state in the nation that either issued guidelines tough enough to really halt community spread of COVID-19, and no state that enforced those guidelines sufficiently. However, those stay-at -home orders and shutdowns did slow the spread of the disease. They took that “R0” value down to something that meant fewer people caught it and fewer people died. Nowhere was it sufficient to snuff it out. Even those not tough enough guidelines have now all but vanished. The rate of transmission is already going up, even if we’re still days or weeks away from seeing the effect.

For everything that has happened, less than 1% of the population in the United States has been confirmed as having COVID-19. Not even in New York City have enough people been infected to significantly reduce the rate of transmission. Think of this as fire season. There are two million sparks out there, most of the firefighters are already occupied, and no one has swept the damn forests.

Don’t play with matches. Or with COVID-19 … because this disease is a rat bastard. Stay home when you can. Wear a mask when you can’t. Stay as safe as possible. Because this is not over.

Posted with permission