CDC Chief: Coronavirus Cases Across U.S. Are ‘Plateauing’
by EDWIN MORA
BREITBART.COM
19 Jun 2020
The United States is in a better position to deal with the spike in Chinese coronavirus cases plaguing several states, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield indicated this week.
“We have learned a great deal about #COVID19 and, across the nation cases we are plateauing,” Dr. Redfield wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “There are still outbreaks, but we have a better capacity to handle them with early case identification, contact tracing, and isolation”:
We have learned a great deal about #COVID19 and across the nation cases we are plateauing. There are still outbreaks, but we have a better capacity to handle them with early case identification, contact tracing, and isolation. My @foxnewsradio interview: https://t.co/ch4aTrvUVp
— Dr. Robert R. Redfield (@CDCDirector) June 17, 2020
COVID-19 refers to the disease caused by the highly contagious and lethal coronavirus.
Redfield’s comments came after several governors in states experiencing a rise in new COVID-19 cases asserted last week that they can handle the spike and are refusing to reimpose lockdown measures.
Earlier this year, most of the U.S. shut down to hinder the spread of the virus and improve health systems’ capacity to deal with COVID-19.
Some public health officials warned that the demonstrations soon after the May 25 death of George Floyd would likely intensify the spread of the virus, which has disproportionally impacted minority populations.
As of Wednesday, several states were seeing upward trends in newly reported coronavirus cases, but the majority were seeing a drop or a steady number of cases, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
The daily number of coronavirus-related deaths continues to drop across the United States, The COVID Tracking Project wrote on Twitter Thursday:
States reported 695 deaths. The trend here has been good. pic.twitter.com/3YduwNHFWy
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 18, 2020
There is a patchwork of guidelines across the United States for reporting deaths, with some states reporting probable coronavirus fatalities, while others do not:
For one thing, only half of states report them despite direction to do so from the CDC. Also, although probables currently account for less than 1% of the nat'l total, they make up 8-20% in the states with the highest proportion of probables, and 75% of all cases in Puerto Rico.
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 18, 2020
The variation between states/territories is also fascinating. DC told the Washington Post it doesn't report probables because it doesn't have any. Delaware, meanwhile, with a comparable total case count, reports nearly 1,000 probable cases.
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 18, 2020
As of Thursday, the daily number of cases reported across the country continued to increase, as states have reported nearly 27,000 new cases, “the most in more than 40 days,” The COVID Tracking Project also tweeted:
States reported nearly 27k cases today, the most in more than 40 days (May 8).
The positive rate was the highest since late May. pic.twitter.com/LzR2w6HTvN
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) June 18, 2020
The number of new cases exceeded 35,000 during the peak of the pandemic in the United States in late April.
On Thursday, the United States reportedly documented the second-most cases in the world, after Brazil (more than 32,000).
