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FILE: San Franciscans keep their distance for coronavirus concerns while using a phone app to do a full body weight workout at Mission Dolores Park. Gyms can begin reopening starting Friday.
Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated PressFILE: San Franciscans keep their distance for coronavirus concerns while using a phone app to do a full body weight workout at Mission Dolores Park. Gyms can begin reopening starting Friday.
FILE: San Franciscans keep their distance for coronavirus concerns while using a phone app to do a full body weight workout at Mission Dolores Park. Gyms can begin reopening starting Friday.
FILE: San Franciscans keep their distance for coronavirus concerns while using a phone app to do a full body weight workout at Mission Dolores Park. Gyms can begin reopening starting Friday.
On Friday, many parts of California will move into Stage 3 of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s four-stage reopening plan as higher-risk businesses like gyms and bars are allowed to open.
Commensurate to its number of COVID-19 cases, California’s reopening has been slow compared to other parts of the country. Texas, for instance, allowed gyms to resume business in early May. Arizona dropped its entire stay-at-home order in mid May; businesses were allowed to reopen with only recommendations, not requirements, to enforce mask use or social distancing.
Now, a little more than two weeks removed from Memorial Day weekend, an unofficial benchmark date for general loosening of stay-at-home behavior around the nation, a number of states are seeing cases spike.
Experts caution against using only case increases as a baseline for reopening success or failure, however. As states have ramped up testing, particularly in underserved areas, identified COVID-19 cases have also increased. That’s been the case in Florida, which is still reporting more cases but a lower daily positive rate. According to the Orlando Sentinel, infection rates are also dropping from a high of 10% earlier in the year to 4.6% positive tests in recent weeks.
But that's not true everywhere. So far, Arizona appears to be the worst-case scenario of ending COVID-19 mitigation efforts. About two weeks after its stay-at-home order ended, the state began seeing a renewed climb in cases. According to numbers from the Arizona Department of Public Health reviewed by Newsweek, the state was seeing 9% of its COVID-19 tests come back positive the week ending May 24. It’s up to an alarming 25% in the week ending June 7. ICU hospitalizations, another indicator of a surge in coronavirus cases, are also increasing.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 are also slowly increasing in Texas, which let its statewide stay-at-home order lapse on April 30. As of Tuesday, the state hit its highest-recorded number of hospitalized coronavirus patients. An NPR study found case increases in Southern states like South Carolina and Tennessee "appears to be linked to the reopening of restaurants, barbershops and gyms" about a month ago. COVID-19 cases are up 75% in Tennessee compared to its numbers two weeks ago.
It’s almost assured that California will report more COVID-19 cases as workplaces and sites of indoor gathering continue to reopen. There is already concern in Sacramento County, where health officials say they’ve seen a “drastic increase” in the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients as restrictions loosen.
“We know from our contact tracing investigations that the majority of these new hospitalizations are related primarily to private gatherings of family and friends,” the county Department of Health Services said in a press release Tuesday.
But even if states do not see a massive spike in summertime cases, a season of "slow burn infections" could still have devastating implications for fall, when flu season, a return to school, more time indoors and COVID-19 are all expected to converge.
"A handful of cases seeded the country back in January. So we’re not going to need a handful of cases coming from Italy and China to seed the country [in the fall]," former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC last week. "We’re going to have tens of thousands of cases here so we can seed ourselves."
Despite some health officials’ concern that widespread national protests could lead to an increase in COVID-19 cases, a noted uptick has yet to occur. Most cases of community spread continue to originate with indoor gatherings, which have a higher likelihood of transmission than outdoor get-togethers, particularly when participants are wearing masks.
UCSF epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford told SFGATE this week that, given protests started in Minnesota two weeks ago, he'd expect to see a protest-related increase by now.
"Minnesota (is) falling steadily; there's one slight uptick on June 1 but that may be because of weekend reporting lags," he said. "But it's all trending down. If you look back seven to 10 days, you would expect to be seeing a significant jump by now."
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Katie Dowd is the SFGATE managing editor. Email her: katie.dowd@sfgate.com | Twitter: @katiedowd
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