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The rampant spread of the coronavirus across the United States has now engulfed California – which until recently stood out from the majority of states in controlling transmission.
California, which now reports 154 new cases per million people per day, has joined most of the rest of the country in the “uncontrolled spread” category of the public health crisis, according to COVID Exit Strategy, a project of experts from health and crises tracking data on coronavirus states.
Three weeks ago, 32 states were in the “uncontrolled spread” category – defined by the COVID exit strategy as more than 150 new cases per million per day. California, then with 75 cases per million, was not one of them.
Today, the total number of states with uncontrolled outbreaks has risen to 47. Only Vermont, Maine, and Hawaii are in less severe categories, along with the District of Columbia.
The infection rate in California over the past two weeks has increased 7.4% from the previous 14 days. Nearly a million Californians have fallen ill since the start of the pandemic; the United States just passed 10 million cases on Monday and hospitalizations are rising rapidly.
California continues to fare better than many other states in the country, including the strip of Midwestern states that have their highest case rates of all time. Twenty-six states had their worst pandemic week in the past two weeks, said Ryan Panchadsaram, co-founder of COVID Exit Strategy. North Dakota, for example, has 1,716 cases per million.
“Compared to the country, we are in a better place,” said Panchadsaram, a former deputy director of technology in the United States who lives in San Francisco. “But with respect to this virus and the way it is spreading, we’re in a pretty bad spot – cautious.
At the same time, cases in California – and Southern California in particular – are also increasing rapidly. On Tuesday, Contra Costa and Santa Cruz were among 11 counties pushed back to tighter levels in the state’s reopening system. San Francisco has also cut indoor dining to control the growing spread of the coronavirus in the city.
And although California experts did not hit peaks during the summer, the growing spread is still a great cause for concern, especially as travelers may come and return from the state for the holidays. California has discouraged non-essential travel, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to set guidelines for travelers to self-quarantine or get tested when traveling out of state.
The wide reopening of travel, business and social media is one of the main factors behind the coronavirus outbreak in California, said Robert Siegel, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University. But it is not the only one.
“Pandemic fatigue” is also at stake, he said. After eight months, people are just exhausted – tired of wearing masks, social distancing, and not being able to do the things they love.
This fatigue is compounded by a new sense of normalcy, he added. “We’re getting a little used to seeing the huge number of infections, of deaths,” Siegel said.
He added that disbelief can make things even more abstract if people still don’t know anyone in their community who has been infected or seriously ill. “They kind of imagine it’s unreal.”
Another related factor may be a shift in priorities, Siegel said. Breaking public health guidelines and getting together in large groups can give the impression that people are ready to take in the wake of a historic election and the onset of the long-awaited holiday season.
Misperceptions of the arrival of a vaccine – that it is closer than it actually is – are concerning because they can promote a sense of relaxation, he said.
Entering winter adds another layer of complication.
“Another wild card is that we don’t know enough about the coronavirus to know what impact winter will have on the infection,” he said.
Annie Vainshtein is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @annievain
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