COVID-19 News from Around the Web

But there are notable omissions. There's nothing about precautions to take before going to church, no guidance about dating and sex and no explicit advice on a topic that some doctors say they get asked all the time: Is it OK to take the kids to visit grandparents? The CDC's director, Dr. Robert Redfield, called the new guidelines "common sense suggestions," not mandates. State or local governments may want to reimpose stricter measures if new outbreaks occur, but that's a call for them to make, CDC officials said. The guidelines repeat earlier advice about wearing face coverings, especially if it's difficult to keep at least 6 feet away from other people.

“We managed to disrupt our economy [and] skyrocket unemployment, and we didn’t control the damn virus,” one scientist says. One month ago, I asked epidemiologist Tara Smith if she was worried about states loosening their stay-at-home orders, despite most not meeting the government’s criteria for doing so. “I am really fearful that by June 1 or June 15, after we’ve seen a couple weeks to a month of [state reopenings], that our cases are going to be climbing,” said Smith, a professor at the Kent State University College of Public Health. Well, here we are. It’s June 12, and Covid-19 hospitalizations are rising in Arizona, the Carolinas, Utah, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, and perhaps Florida. Those states are also seeing higher numbers of positive Covid-19 tests, as well as increases in the percentage of tests that come back positive. This indicates that the higher case counts aren’t simply due to more widespread testing finding milder cases. Call it a reopening backfire. But really: No expert thought that reopening this quickly was going to work in the first place.

Just weeks after parts of the U.S. began reopening, coronavirus infections are on the upswing in several states, including Arizona, Utah, Texas and Florida. Dramatic increases in daily case counts have given rise to some unsettling questions: Is the U.S. at the start of a second wave? Have states reopened too soon? And have the recent widespread demonstrations against racial injustice inadvertently added fuel to the fire? The short, unpleasant answer to the first question is that the U.S. has not even gotten through the current first wave of infections. Since peaking at around 31,000 average new daily cases on April 10, new daily cases dropped to around 22,000 on average by mid-May and have stayed almost steady over the last four weeks. Nationwide more than 800 people continue to die day after day. Prominent forecasters are predicting a slow but steady accumulation of additional deaths between now and Oct. 1 — more than 56,000 by one estimate, around 90,000 by one another. "We really never quite finished the first wave," says Dr. Ashish Jha, a professor of global health at Harvard University. "And it doesn't look like we are going to anytime soon."

After months away from the campaign trail, President Donald Trump plans to rally his supporters next Saturday for the first time since most of the country was shuttered by the coronavirus. But health experts are questioning that decision. Trump will head to Tulsa, Oklahoma — a state that has seen relatively few COVID-19 cases. Yet the Tulsa City-County Health Department’s director told the Tulsa World over the weekend that he wished the Trump campaign would move the date back because of a “significant increase in our case trends.” “I’m concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I’m also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well,” Dr. Bruce Dart told the newspaper. Other health experts also cite the danger of infection spreading among the crowd and sparking outbreaks when people return to their homes. The Trump campaign itself acknowledges the risk in a waiver attendees must agree to absolving them of any responsibility should people get sick.

About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with a rising number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds, fanning concerns that the reopening of the U.S. economy may spark a second wave of infections. ... A recent spike in cases in about a dozen states partially reflects increased testing. But many of those states are also seeing rising hospitalizations and some are beginning to run short on intensive care unit (ICU) beds. Texas has seen record hospitalizations for three days in a row, and in North Carolina only 13% of the state’s ICU beds are available due to severe COVID-19 cases. Houston’s mayor said the city was ready to turn its NFL stadium into a make-shift hospital if necessary. Arizona has seen a record number of hospitalizations at 1,291. The state health director told hospitals this week to activate emergency plans and increase ICU capacity. About three-quarters of the state's ICU beds are filled, according to the state website.

Stocks suffered their biggest one-day pull-back in three months on Thursday as traders grew concerned about the number of coronavirus cases increasing in some states that are reopening up from lockdowns. Shares that have surged recently on hopes for a smooth reopening of the economy led the declines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,861.82 points, or 6.9%, to close at 25,128.17. The S&P 500 slid 5.9% to 3,002.10 while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.3%. to end the day at 9,492.73. The major averages posted their worst day since March 16, when they all dropped more than 11%. The S&P 500 also logged in its first three-day losing streak since early March.

Brazil reported a cumulative total of 802,828 confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday, with 30,412 new infections in the last 24 hours in the world’s second worst outbreak after the United States. With another 1,239 fatalities, the death toll in Brazil has reached 40,919, the health ministry said, the world’s third highest after the United States and Britain. Of the total cases of COVID-19, 345,595 have recovered, the ministry said.

North Carolina is experiencing a surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations during its second phase of reopening, forcing the state's health director to contend with the idea of a second shutdown. "If we need to go back to stay-at-home [orders], we will," Mandy Cohen, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, told NPR's Morning Edition on Thursday. "I hope we don't have to. I think there are things we can do before we have to get there, but yes, we are concerned." North Carolina became one of the first states to reopen when it lifted several restrictions related to COVID-19 on May 8.