COVID numbers are still increasing across the country, with no signs of a coronavirus pandemic on the way out. No matter how you look at it—rising case numbers, hospitalizations, positive test rates—the U.S. is facing a crisis, and certain hard-hit states will need to rethink their plans to move forward.
However, with so much information and data rolling every day— and the epicenters of the pandemic dominating nationwide coverage— it can be hard to get a perspective on which states should roll back to re-opening. In a Twitter update on July 11, Ashish Jha, MD, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, discussed his own color-coded system for determining each state’s risk levels based on the number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. He listed four states that were in the “yellow” category but were getting closer and closer to the “orange” category.
These states should “ratchet back activity,” he said, and “all of them should try to minimize the spread of the virus— they can still do that.” Here are the four states that need to make some changes to their re-opening plans.
