Coronavirus spreading along highways ravaging rural towns with Delaware, Ohio and Colorado ‘on cusp of major outbreaks
CORONAVIRUS could be traveling along the US interstate highways as people travel across the country, creating hot spots throughout the US.
A new model by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) PolicyLab shows that people traveling from harder-hit states like Texas, Arizona and Florida are carrying the virus across state lines.
The situation is dire in states with rising case numbers and the latest projections suggest it will only get worse over the next month.
Models created by CHOP PolicyLab were updated on Wednesday.
The researchers noticed that emerging hotspots appear to be cropping up along interstates like I-95 as the virus travels US highways with migrating people.
There are burgeoning hotspots are appearing along I-80, moving from central Illinois into Iowa, and on I-90 North into upstate New York too.
The number of people traveling around the country is expected to rise as people head off to parties around the country for July 4 celebrations.
This is making urban areas that have the virus relatively controlled, like Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Baltimore, vulnerable to resurgences.
It also means that rural places like Colorado, parts of Delaware and cities in Ohio, will see a fallout spread from infected states as people travel between neighboring states.
The CHOP PolicyLab researchers’ forecasts come as eight states hit their respective record high single-day infection numbers yesterday, which they predict will only continue to surge, echoing Dr Fauci.
Scientists like Dr Anthony Fauci have all warned that Americans need to change their general attitude and be more vigilant and strict on themselves to curb the spread.
They cited basic social distancing measures like wearing a mask and keeping two meters apart or more wherever possible, as well as avoiding gathering in groups as fundamental to taming the coronavirus infestation.
Director of PolicyLab at CHOP, Dr David Rubin, said: “We need to admit that we are losing the battle nationally to contain this dangerous virus as it engulfs more communities across the country, including those in the Northeast and Midwest that worked so hard to reduce cases and get back to a relatively normal way of life.”
Work by major cities to bring the curve down after months of hard lockdown measures similar to those that have been used in Europe to great effect could be undone.
Michigan, for example, started handing out face masks on its public transit vehicles, slowed the spread, and quietly slipped from the ‘hotspot’ category by the end of April.
However, with the lack of social distancing over the past few weeks as states reopened, cases are starting to rise again in cities like Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Baltimore too.
With summer upon the US, a stop to interstate travel is unlikely, but other potential strategies to slow the spread of coronavirus are lacking.
Dr Rubin said: “During a heavy travel season, the absence of a strong national response, including a nationwide masking mandate, will continue to threaten the viability of our economy and the ability of our schools to reopen in the fall, while depleting and surpassing available health care resources to care for the sick”
“What’s even more worrisome is that we’ll soon add July Fourth travel to this challenging situation – vacationers will be visiting locations that even during the Memorial Day holiday had relatively low disease activity – but are quite the opposite now.”
Travel has been discouraged to areas like Delaware which has been forced to close its beachfront bars to stop people gathering and causing an outbreak.
In its last projections, published two weeks ago, PolicyLab warned that Maricopa County, Arizona, could see more than 20,000 new infections a day by mid-July.
On Wednesday, the state reported 4,900 new coronavirus cases and 88 deaths, the highest number yet in a single day, by far.
State governor Doug Ducey ordered bars, gyms and movie theaters to close and urged residents to wear masks outside their homes.
Face masks have been made mandatory in the city of Phoenix (which is in Maricopa County).
Thanks in part to these measures, CHOP’s projected case numbers for the next month are considerably lower, but still appallingly high compared to other countries.
CHOP now projects that, by mid-July, daily cases in Maricopa County will near 8,000.
Although coronavirus outbreaks have seemed to bleed from community to community along interstate travel routes, that’s only one pattern of spread.
“Travel alone cannot explain the worsening forecasts.” the CHOP researchers wrote in a blog post.
“We don’t know whether it is fatigue and/or weak enforcement of city or state masking mandates, but our vigilance to properly protecting ourselves and those around us during a pandemic is eroding at a time when we need it most.
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“And it’s not just the big cities – college towns across the country, from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Lansing, Michigan, are joining the list, threatening the reopening of schools that seemed so possible just a month ago.”
The US currently has around 2.7 million cases and has suffered over 128,000 deaths.
Daily case numbers have soared in what appears to be a second spike, with over 50 thousand new cases being reported daily.
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