Acceleration in New COVID-19 Cases in Some US States Causes Alarm

Arizona, Florida, California, and others have seen record numbers of daily new coronavirus positives in the last couple of weeks, and that’s not just a reflection of more testing. Hospitalizations are up too.

Written byCatherine Offord

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The growth in the number of COVID-19 cases is accelerating substantially in more than one-quarter of US states, as federal and local governments grapple with how to ease lockdown measures brought in to help slow the pandemic.

Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Oregon are among 14 states to have seen more than a 50 percent increase in the average number of daily new cases in the last two weeks compared with the two weeks before that. So far, the US has counted more than 2 million cases and 120,000 deaths from COVID-19.

“The situation in Florida and Arizona is really concerning,” Harvard University epidemiologist William Hanage tells Reuters. The data from these states indicate that there is an “underlying outbreak of unknown size,” not just higher case numbers due to increases in testing, he adds.

Arizona reported a state record of 3,246 new cases on Friday (June 19), surpassing the previous ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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