Coronavirus Cases Spike Across US, Florida Possibly Next Epicenter

As coronavirus cases are starting to spike across the U.S., experts are saying that Florida could possibly be the next epicenter for the disease. According to ABC 57, a team of scientists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania put together a model that projected the chances. Florida has “all the markings of the next large epicenter of coronavirus transmission,” and runs the risk of being the “worst it has ever been,” per the results of the project.

Florida is just one of 10 states that have seen record-high seven-day averages of new coronavirus cases per day, joining Alabama, Arizona, California, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas. This is according to a CNN analysis of data collected by Johns Hopkins University. As far as all the states that are seeing Covid-19 cases trend upwards — per the JHU data — the aforementioned ones are joined by Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming. Then there are eight states that are seeing steady numbers in new cases: Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. To date, more than 100,000 have died from coronavirus.

While more than half of the states in the U.S. are either seeing more cases or steady cases, 21 states are seeing a downward trend in new cases. These states are 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. Notably, Vermont is reported to have seen a decrease of at least 50 percent.

This new report comes nearly one week after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the continuing rise in new Covid-19 cases could potentially lead to a “second wave” of quarantining. “If cases begin to go up again, particularly if they go up dramatically, it’s important to recognize that more mitigation efforts such as what were implemented back in March may be needed again,” CDC deputy director Jay Butler said on Friday, per CNBC. “Right now, communities are experiencing different levels of transmission occurring, as they gradually ease up onto the community mitigation efforts and gradually reopen.”

At this time, while people are going out and about in public, the CDC strongly recommends that everyone wear a face mask to help prevent the spread of the virus. The department also recommends that everyone wash their hands regularly with warm water and soap.