Coronavirus cases rising faster than ever

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If you’ve been thinking that the coronavirus is under control and that international travel might be opening up sooner than we thought, you may want to hold that thought for a little while.

New cases of coronavirus are now rising at a rate faster than ever worldwide.

Since May 21, there have been only five days where cases have been under 100,000 a day.

That’s a lot of cases and a big problem.

But there are some regions where things are much worse than others and also these numbers are likely the result of more widespread testing so it’s not all doom and gloom.

First, let’s just take a look at the chart to see what we’re working with.

Chart via CNN.

As you can see, North America hit an Apex in mid-April.

There’s no doubt that was the product of dramatic social distancing and shut downs across the continent. You can see the numbers as they went down toward the beginning of May and for the most part stabilized until recently beginning to increase again.

This increase coincides with the re-opening up of many economies around the country. But it also coincides with more testing that’s being done.

So the big question for the US is how much worse are things spreading now than they were in March when things were getting out of control and health care systems were threatened?

I think it’s still going to take some time for the data to roll in and reveal that.

I’m sure that new cases will continue to rise but with the social distancing policies in place and things like masks being mandatory in so many locations, I don’t think we will experience another exponential surge like we did in the past.

But in other parts of the globe, things are less under control.

If you look at the cases for Latin America, for example, things are rapidly escalating there.

Things are also getting heated in the Middle East and Africa where the rate of transmission is also accelerating.

According to CNN, “In Libya, Iraq, Uganda, Mozambique and Haiti, the data shows the number of known cases is doubling every week. In Brazil, India, Chile, Colombia and South Africa, cases are doubling every two weeks.”
 
“The Americas continues to account for the most cases. For several weeks, the number of cases reported each day in the Americas has been more than the rest of the world put together,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday.
 
It’s very possible that Central and South America have not reached their peak yet. Things look bad there and there also has been questions about the accuracy of their testing so it could be much worse there.
 
So if you’re planning on heading to those destinations this summer, it may not be feasible.
 
Some other countries like South Korea, Germany, and China have also seen clusters of new infections as restrictions have been removed.
 
At this point, I think everybody realizes that cases will increase as things re-open. It’s just a matter of how quickly things will escalate and how bad they will get.
 
I think with another month of data we will have a better indication of whether or not a second wave will occur during the summer. But I believe there is still a lot of unknown about what will happen when we return to flu season in the fall.
 
H/T: CNN