‘Coming back and biting us’: Virus resurges in U.S.

HOUSTON — Hospital administrators and health experts warned desperately Wednesday that parts of the U.S. are on the verge of becoming overwhelmed by a resurgence of the coronavirus, lamenting that politicians and a public tired of being cooped up are letting a disaster unfold.

What’s happening

The U.S. recorded a one-day total of 34,700 new COVID19 cases, the highest in two months, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The number of new cases per day is now running just short of the nation’s lateApril peak of 36,400.

While newly confirmed infections have been declining steadily in early hot spots such as New York and New Jersey, several other states set single-day records this week, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas and Oklahoma. Some of them also broke hospitalization records, as did North Carolina and South Carolina.

“People got complacent,” said Dr. Marc Boom, CEO of the Houston Methodist hospital system. “And it’s coming back and biting us, quite frankly.”

The stock market slid sharply Wednesday as the virus’s resurgence clouded investors’ hopes for a relatively quick economic turnaround. The virus in the U.S. has been blamed for over 120,000 deaths — the highest toll in the world — and over 2.3 million confirmed infections.

California, the most populous state, reported over 7,100 new cases, a record. Florida’s single-day count surged to 5,500, a 25% jump from the record set last week and triple the level from just two weeks ago.

In Texas, which began lifting its shutdowns early on, on May 1, hospitalizations have doubled and new cases have tripled in two weeks.

Gov. Greg Abbott told KFDA-TV that the state is facing a “massive outbreak” and might need new local restrictions to preserve hospital space in some places.

At Houston Methodist’s eight Texas hospitals, the COVID-19 patient count has tripled in the last month, to 312. About 20% of the coronavirus tests the hospitals conduct now come back positive, compared with roughly 2% to 4% in mid-May.

When resources may be overwhelmed

If the trends don’t change, the 2,000-bed hospital chain could have 600 coronavirus patients in the next three weeks and could be forced to cancel nonessential surgeries, Boom said.

“We need everybody to behave perfectly and work together perfectly” to slow the infection rate, Boom said. “When I look at a restaurant or a business where people ... are not following the guidelines, where people are just throwing caution to the wind, it makes me angry.”

In Arizona, cases will probably exceed statewide hospital bed capacity within the next several weeks if the trend continues, said Dr. Joseph Gerald, a University of Arizona public health policy professor.

“We are in deep trouble,” said Gerald, urging the state to impose new restrictions on businesses, which Gov. Doug Ducey has refused to do. Without such steps, Gerald said, the death toll will reach “unheard-of ” levels.

Infectious-disease expert Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas said he worries that states will squander what time they have to head off a much larger crisis.

“We’re still talking about subtlety, still arguing whether or not we should wear masks, and still not understanding that a vaccine is not going to rescue us,” he said.

The Texas governor initially barred local officials from fining or penalizing anyone for not wearing a mask as the state reopened. After cases began spiking, Abbott said last week that cities and counties could allow businesses to require masks. Both Abbott and Ducey are Republicans.

Why some are frustrated

Some business owners are frustrated that officials didn’t do more, and act sooner, to require masks.

“I can’t risk my staff, my clientele, myself, my family and everybody else in that chain just because other people are too inconvenienced to wear a piece of cloth on their face,” said Michael Neff, an owner of the Cottonmouth Club in Houston. He closed it down this week so staffers could get tested after one had contact with an infected person.