Six states have reported a record number of new cases of COVID-19 as they have eased restrictions and allowed certain businesses to reopen. Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas, have continued to see a rise in new cases, after setting records for the number of daily cases last week. In Nevada, the number of new cases climbed above the previous high, which was set on May 23, before the casinos began to reopen.
While some politicians have claimed the rise in new cases is related to better and more efficient tests, health experts said the number of new cases outpaces the increase in testing.
"You can have a small percentage increase because of testing in terms of number of cases," Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN. "But when you see 50% or 150% increase in the number of cases you are seeing -- which is what we are seeing across the South -- that's not testing. That's new cases. That's community spread."
While many are worried that the U.S. is seeing the early signs of a second wave of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the country is still in the first wave of the pandemic.
"We are seeing infections to a greater degree than they had previously seen in certain states, including states in the south-west and in the south," Fauci told the Daily Beast. "I don't like to talk about a second wave right now, because we haven't gotten out of our first wave."
A total of 21 states have seen a continued rise in new cases. Those states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Oregon, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington have reported the number of new cases has remained stable while 21 states have seen the number of new cases go down. Those states include Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
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