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Get Ready for a Long, Hot, Coronavirus Summer
Cases surge in several states as the coronavirus digs in for the long haul
Hopes for a summer respite from Covid-19 have been dashed. In several states, the number of new cases is rising significantly as the coronavirus seeps into the nation’s small towns and rural areas and shows no signs of taking the summer off.
In fact, the nationwide decline in “the curve” of daily new cases, from a peak of 35,000 in early April to around 20,000 in recent weeks, has been obfuscated by the fact that four states with 40% of the nationwide case total — New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois — experienced significant declines.
“That is hiding the fact that the majority of other states are either increasing their numbers or fluctuating in fits and starts around a peak,” says Mark Cameron, PhD, an immunologist and medical researcher in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. “Our victory lap has started too quickly.”
The nationwide curve was flattened thanks to stay-at-home orders and other preventive measures, Cameron says. But rather than continuing to bend the curve down, as many other countries have done, ours is on a “disappointing plateau,” he says, a “slow burn” that’s putting seeds of the virus in every nook and…
