Coronavirus cases across the United States have now declined for the fifth straight week but South Dakota has seen a 50 percent increase in infections following its annual motorcycle rally that drew in tens of thousands of people.
The country is now averaging just over 42,000 new COVID-19 infections a day for the first time since late June.
The number of infections dropped 17 percent in the week ending August 23 compared to the previous seven days with 35 states reporting a decline in new cases.
Eight states reported a week-on-week increase of more than 10 percent, including South Dakota, North Carolina, Mississippi, Illinois, Arkansas, Wyoming, North Dakota and Maine, according to a Reuters tally of state and county reports.
The state that saw the biggest increase in cases last week was South Dakota at 50 percent with 1,000 new infections, according to a Reuters tally of state and county reports.
Coronavirus cases across the United States have now declined for the fifth straight week with the country now averaging just over 42,000 new COVID-19 infections a day for the first time since late June
The number of infections dropped 17 percent in the week ending August 23 compared to the previous seven days with 35 states reporting a decline in new cases
Infections have been rising since the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew more than 100,000 people from all over the country from August 7 to 16.
At least two dozens COVID-19 cases in South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska have now been linked back to the rally.
South Dakota’s health department issued several warnings last week saying that three people who spent several hours at bars in Sturgis and a tattoo parlor had tested positive and had potentially exposed others.
The state, which now has 11,200 cases, has been experiencing an uptick of COVID-19 infections with cases steadily rising over the last month.
At least seven cases in Nebraska’s pandhandle region in the state’s west have been linked to the rally. Meanwhile, health officials in Minnesota confirmed that 15 residents had tested positive for COVID-19 after being exposed at the rally.
The uptick in these states is well below the triple digits reported in June and July in the hotspots of California, Texas, Arizona and Florida. The increases are nowhere near enough to reflect an uptick in the national trend.
Meanwhile, national deaths are now also declining having dropped below an average of 1,000 per day for the first time in a month.
The average number of fatalities due to COVID-19 was at 972 as of Monday.
Deaths, which had been plateauing nationally for about three weeks, are a lagging indicator and can potentially rise several weeks after new cases start to decline.
While still high, the current daily death rate in the US remains below levels seen in April when an average of 2,000 people were dying per day from COVID-19.
National deaths are now also declining having dropped below an average of 1,000 per day for the first time in a month. Deaths, which had been plateauing nationally for about three weeks, are a lagging indicator and can potentially rise several weeks after new cases start to decline
National deaths are now also declining having dropped below an average of 1,000 per day for the first time in a month. Nine states have seen deaths increase more than 50 percent in the last week, including Wyoming, Delaware, Missouri, Maine, Alaska, Kentucky, Arkansas, Virginia and New Hampshire
Coronavirus infections in the US have now topped 5.7 million and more than 177,000 have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic started.
The month-long national decline in cases is due mainly to the significant drop off in the hotspot states of California, Arizona, Florida and Texas after infections peaked there in mid-July.
The hotspot states, as well as others with high infections rates across the country, all implemented mitigation measures around July in a bid to stop the spread of the virus.
Of the hotspot states driving down the national infection rate, California and Texas implemented statewide mask mandates when out in public.
In the absence of statewide orders, some Florida and Arizona counties have required residents to wear masks.
All four hotspot states shut down bars and all but Florida also forced gyms to close.
The current decline in deaths and cases comes a month after President Donald Trump, who for months refused to publicly wear a mask, urged Americans to cover their faces in public to stop the spread.
CDC director Robert Redfield had predicted just days ago that deaths would start to decline this week, saying it was a direct result of mitigation measures like mask wearing and the closure of bars in hotspot states.
Redfield said it can often take weeks before the effects of those measures are reflected in the daily numbers due to the lag between deaths and positive tests.
Infections have been rising since the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which drew more than 100,000 people from all over the country from August 7 to 16
South Dakota’s health department issued several warnings last week saying that three people who spent several hours at bars in Sturgis and a tattoo parlor had tested positive and had potentially exposed others
‘It is important to understand these interventions are going to have a lag, that lag is going to be three to four weeks,’ he said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association last Thursday.
Redfield noted that southern states, which have been the hardest hit amid the pandemic, are seeing a progressive drop in cases.
Health experts in these some of these southern states have also linked the drop off in cases to mitigation measures put in place.
In Florida, a large share of the summer surge in infections particularly occurred in teenagers and young adults who are less likely to be hospitalized and die from the virus.
Experts had warned that younger people, however, could have gone on to infect their elderly or at risk relatives, which could explain the surging death toll in Florida last month.
Dr Mary Jo Trepka, chair of the epidemiology department at the Florida International University, credited the bar closures and local mask mandates for reversing the trends, the New York Times reports.
Dr Jo Gerald, who works on public health policy at the University of Arizona, said the huge decline in cases and deaths in Arizona was a direct result of mask orders, closures of bars and gyms and additional news coverage of the risks.
Health experts, however, have warned Americans not to become complacent because, even as COVID-19 infections continue to drop, they are still the highest in the world.
‘We basically have 50 laboratory experiments going on right now, and every state has a slightly different policy approach,’ Dr Gerald said.
‘If we get complacent, this thing could get out of control again. And we’ll have even less safety margin to manage it because we’re starting from a higher place.’