While the beginning of August has come with some good news for some hard-hit states which are now seeing a slight decline in coronavirus cases, many others are just entering the “red zone.”
According to the country’s top medical experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, some Midwestern states are now at risk, with more and more COVID cases every day. Moreover, recent data showed that Nebraska is now one of the states that have moved into the “red zone,” according to CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD.
“Nebraska is a state right now that we consider a ‘red zone’ state,” he said in an interview with local Omaha ABC affiliate KETV 7 on August 6. “I would look at this data and I would say, ‘We need help.'”
Nebraska has registered 15.2 new COVID cases per 100,000 resistents last week, as Covid Act Now showed, which puts it “at risk of an outbreak” on the site’s map. According to the White House, for a state to enter the “red zone,” it needs to register more than 100 new cases every week per 100,000 residents and a positive test rate above 10 percent.
“We are seeing encouraging signs across the South,” Birx said on a private call. “We are concerned that both Baltimore and Atlanta remain at a very high level — [also] Kansas City, Portland, Omaha [and] of course what we talked about in the Central Valley [of California].”
“If you’re in a red or yellow county, bringing together family members will create, potentially, particularly if indoors, superspreader events,” she said. “We’re finding that across the South and moving up into the Midwest.”
Additionally, the coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx, MD, has mentioned in a call with local officials on August 5 that Nebraska is now in the “red zone” as the number of positive tests has recently gotten over the 10 percent limit.
Nevertheless, in a previously leaked White House report, Nebraska was in the “yellow zone” with 93 new weekly cases per 100,000 residents and a positive test rate at 9.1 percent. Recently, the Midwestern state has exceeded the “red zone” line, according to Birx. She also mentioned that Nebraska’s largest city, Omaha is currently experiencing an increase in positive test results.
Anthony Fauci, MD, and fellow Task Force member, has declared that the infection rate is a “pretty good predictor” for future COVID-19 hotspots. “We’ve seen that in the Southern states as predictors,” Fauci told CNN. “This is a predictor of trouble ahead.”
Moreover, California was also mentioned by Birx and Redfield regarding the number of new coronavirus cases in some regions. After weeks of being in the “red zone,” last week, California made it to the “yellow zone” for positive test rate. However, while Los Angeles County has seen a decline in the number of new infections, Central Valley becomes more problematic day by day, according to Birx.
“It’s not entirely clear which states the Task Force has designated as ‘red,’ ‘yellow,’ or ‘green,’ how often that label may change, or what the criteria may be for the designation because the panel hasn’t released the information on the classification system,” CNN notes.
This week’s data hasn’t been leaked yet to the public, so it is still unclear how every state is labeled this week. As for Nebraska, Redfield urges a mask mandate. “We’ve seen remarkable changes in Arizona, Texas, and Florida really by taking it seriously and getting the public to embrace masks,” he told KETV.
“My plea to the people of Nebraska and Omaha is please follow these common-sense measures. The other one is to avoid crowded indoor spaces,” said Dr. Stephen Hahn, who is also commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. “We all like to go out to dinner or to the bars. Try to avoid them because they’re places where there’s a very high probability of spread.”
“To me, it’s not an issue of ‘mandate vs. not.’ It’s ’OK, here’s the data.’ We just showed in Arizona, Texas, Arizona, that this works,” Hahn said.
