- California is delaying the reopening of its economy, closing bars across the state after an increase in COVID-19 cases.
- The statewide rate of positive coronavirus tests has reached a two-week average of 7.4%.
- The move comes weeks after Florida introduced restrictions on its bars. But states are not doing so badly.
- Florida’s positive test rate has been in the double digits for weeks, while California has not cleared 10% since April.
- “Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic,” Dr. Lilian Abbo, chief infection prevention officer for the Jackson Health System, told the Associated Press. “What we were seeing in Wuhan six months ago. Now, we are there.”
- “I think what happened is that some states have been content to flatten the curve rather than actually bend it, rather than actually bend it and bring it to zero,” said Dr. Thomas Tsai of Harvard University. Business Insider.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Two of the first COVID-19 success stories in the US displayed very different approaches. California closed everything early, while Florida reopened – bars, gyms and restaurants in the interior – weeks earlier than most other states.
Neither state is in a particularly good place today. California reported more than 8,300 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, up from just over 3,200 a month earlier. That’s not just because he’s running more tests, either; the positive rate is also rising, Sunday hitting a 14-day average of 7.4%, up from 5.6% two weeks earlier.
On Monday, Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, reversed course: Instead of a gradual reopening, he announced that he would close bars, indoor restaurants and movie theaters.
“This virus will not go away anytime soon,” he said.
For John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, Berkeley, it’s about time. “I totally agree with what he suggested,” Swartzberg told the San Francisco Chronicle. “And I’m sorry it wasn’t done two weeks ago.”
California, in fact, is acting weeks after Florida. Bars in both states reopened in early June, but Republican Governor Ron DeSantis banned alcohol consumption in bars in his state on June 26.
But while neither is in a great place, one is much worse. “Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic,” Dr. Lilian Abbo, chief infection prevention officer for Jackson Health System in Miami, told the Associated Press. Referring to Wuhan, China, the city where the new coronavirus was first identified, he said: “What we were seeing in Wuhan six months ago. Now, we are there.”
One of Abbo’s colleagues told Business Insider that it was DeSantis’s early decision to return to business as usual, for example, the opening of an indoor dining room in May, which precipitated the current increase, which saw more of 15,300 Floridians diagnosed with COVID-19 on Sunday, a record for any state.
“When everything started opening and loosening, our volume went up,” Dr. Mark Supino, an emergency medicine physician at Jackson Health System, said in an interview.
Dr. Thomas Tsai, a public health expert at Harvard University, says that Florida, unlike California, began reopening without actually seeing a decrease in infections. Both are struggling, he told Business Insider, but Florida is reporting far more cases than California with just over half the population, not because it is testing many more, but because many more people are testing positive.
In the past two weeks, Florida’s positive rate has never dropped below 11.25%, and last Wednesday it topped 18%. California, by contrast, has not reached double digits since April.
“California has been able to keep the lid on the pot and keep things from boiling,” said Tsai.
But, he added, “He really hasn’t had a chance to lower the temperature.”
“In Florida, it’s the opposite,” said Tsai. “I think what happened is that some states have been content to flatten the curve instead of actually doubling it, instead of actually doubling it and bringing it to zero.”
The state has also failed to increase contact tracking. The Miami-Dade County epicenter never followed through on the mayor’s promise in May to hire hundreds of tracers, as Business Insider has reported.
The focus, too often, has been on reopening the economy, regardless of long-term economic and personal cost, Tsai said. And some jurisdictions need to do much more than just cut back.
“Clearly, in states where the pandemic has gotten out of control, limited closure is needed to prevent hospitals from being overrun,” he said.
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