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PTI | AP

New York: States are rolling back lockdowns, but the coronavirus isn’t done with the US.

Cases are rising in nearly half the states, according to an Associated Press analysis, a worrying trend that could intensify as people return to work and venture out during the summer.

In Arizona, hospitals have been told to prepare for the worst. Texas has more hospitalized COVID-19 patients than at any time before. And the governor of North Carolina said recent jumps caused him to rethink plans to reopen schools or businesses.

There is no single reason for the surges. In some cases, more testing has revealed more cases. In others, local outbreaks are big enough to push statewide tallies higher. But experts think at least some are due to lifting stay-at-home orders, school and business closures, and other restrictions put in place during the spring to stem the virus’s spread.

The increase in infections pulled stocks down sharply Thursday on Wall Street, dragging the Dow Jones Industrial Average more than 1,500 points lower and placing the S&P 500 on track for its worst day in nearly three months. The infections dampened recent optimism that the reopening of businesses would drive a relatively quick economic recovery.

The virus is also gradually fanning out.

It is a disaster that spreads, said Dr. Jay Butler, who oversees coronavirus response work at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s not like there’s an entire continental seismic shift and everyone feels the shaking all at once. That is also happening globally. Places that suffered early on such as China, Italy and Spain have calmed down but Brazil, India and other countries that were spared initially are seeing large increases. The world is seeing more than 100,000 newly-confirmed cases every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The virus first landed on the U.S. coasts, carried by international travelers infected abroad. For months, the epicenter was in northeastern states. More recently, the biggest increases have been in the South and the West.

The AP analyzed data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer organization that collects coronavirus testing data in the United States. The analysis found that in 21 states as of Monday, the rolling seven-day average of new cases per capita was higher than the average seven days earlier.

Some worry the situation may get worse as social distancing restrictions lift and more people gather. One concern is that large recent racial justice protests across the country might spark at least some spread of the virus.

Another: President Donald Trump this week said he’s planning to hold rallies that may draw thousands of people. He will hold them in four states Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas. All of them are among the states with rising cases identified in the AP analysis.

Here’s what’s driving increases in some of the states with notable upticks: ARIZONA

Republican Gov. Doug Ducey ended Arizona’s stay-at-home order on May 15 and eased restrictions on businesses. Arizona residents who were cooped up for six weeks flooded Phoenix-area bar districts, ignoring social distancing guidelines.

The state began seeing a surge of new cases and hospitalizations about 10 days later.

It seems pretty clear to me that what we’re seeing is directly related to the end of the stay-at-home order, said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association.

It wasn’t just that the order ended: There were no requirements to wear face masks, no major increases in contact tracing to spot and stop evolving outbreaks, and no scale-up of infection control at nursing homes, he said.

Those are missed opportunities that, if implemented today, could still make a big difference, said Humble, a former director of the state Department of Health Services.

Testing has been increasing in Arizona, which raises the chance of finding new cases. But the proportion of tests coming back positive has also been on the rise.

The AP analysis found Arizona had a rolling average of fewer than 400 new cases a day at the time the shutdown was lifted, but it shot up two weeks later and surpassed 1,000 new cases a day by early this week. Hospitalizations have also risen dramatically, hitting the 1,200 mark last week.

The state also passed another grim milestone last week, recording its 1,000th death.

Meanwhile Arizona hospitals reported they were at 83% of capacity Tuesday, which could force the cancellation of elective surgeries. An executive order Ducey issued in April said hospitals wanting to resume elective surgeries had to have at least 20% of their beds available.

PTI | AP

Washington: The White House is floating a theory that travel from Mexico may be contributing to a new wave of coronavirus infections, rather than states’ efforts to reopen their economies.

The notion was discussed at some length during a meeting of the administration’s coronavirus task force in the White House Situation Room Thursday that focused, in part, on identifying commonalities between new outbreaks, according to two administration officials familiar with the discussions.

COVID-19 cases are currently rising in nearly half of states across the country, according to an Associated Press analysis. That includes Arizona, where hospitals have been told to prepare for the worst, and Texas, which now has more hospitalized patients than ever.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was deploying teams to Arizona and other hotspots to try to trace the outbreaks and contain them, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly describe internal conversations. CDC officials and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In addition to Arizona, other states experiencing recent spikes of infections include California, Texas and North Carolina particularly within the Hispanic community.

As a result, the task force is looking at whether those spikes may be tied to legal travel between the U.S. and Mexico, which is experiencing an ongoing severe coronavirus outbreak.

Mexico has had more than 133,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 16,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University dramatically fewer than the U.S., which has surpassed 2 million cases and more than 113,000 deaths.

The U.S. and Mexico entered into a joint agreement in March to restrict non-essential travel along the countries’ border to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, though American citizens and many others are still allowed entry to the U.S., including those conducting commercial traffic and agricultural workers.

Still, cross-border travel is down substantially, and the U.S. State Department continues to urge Americans to avoid all international travel due to the pandemic.

Trump has long tried to used Mexico as a scapegoat, painting the country as a source of crime and disease in the U.S. And he has used the pandemic crisis to push forward some of his most hard-line stalled immigration proposals, including blocking asylum cases and placing new limits on green cards.

In addition to its theory about Mexico, members of the White House task force were also exploring other potential causes for the recent uptick in numbers, noting that circumstances likely differ by location.

Delays in test reporting and the fact that some infected people take multiple tests in order to get an all-clear to return to work are among the other theories that are being explored, but would not account for the increase in hospitalizations seen in some states.

The statement comes after US State Department expressed disappointed at North Korea for suspending communication hotlines with South Korea

Reuters

Seoul: North Korea said on Thursday the United States has no standing to comment on inter-Korean affairs, and it is in Washington’s interest to stay quiet if it wants the upcoming presidential election to go smoothly, state media reported.

The statement comes after the U.S. State Department said it was disappointed at North Korea for suspending communication hotlines with South Korea on Tuesday.

“If the U.S. pokes its nose into others’ affairs with careless remarks, far from minding its internal affairs, at a time when its political situation is in the worst-ever confusion, it may encounter an unpleasant thing hard to deal with,” Kwon Jong Gun, director-general for U.S. affairs at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, said in comments carried by state news agency KCNA.

The United States should “hold its tongue” and address its own domestic problems unless it wants to “experience a hair-raiser,” he said.

“It would be good not only for the U.S. interests but also for the easy holding of upcoming presidential election.”

It is unclear what North Korea would do to disrupt the election or cause problems for U.S. President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, said James Kim, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

“If anything, there’s a chance that provocation may even rally the country around the incumbent,” he said.

After a series of historic summits in 2018 and 2019 between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, little progress has been made in dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons programme, and Pyongyang has expressed increasing frustration with Washington’s refusal to ease sanctions.

North Korea said on Tuesday it would sever hotlines with South Korea after days of lashing out at Seoul for not stopping defectors from sending leaflets and other material into the North.

On Wednesday, South Korea said it would take legal action against two organisations that conduct such operations.