Thread by @AbraarKaran

Right, so this is not good.

Since the start of June, 14 states in the US have recorded their highest ever 7-day average number of new #covid19 infections.

washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06…

List below:

While 7-day average is a more robust measure than new cases daily, need to also look at number of tests being conducted.

% positive tests helps us to understand how much of the increase is related to testing more.

I would guess ⬆️ over the 1st week in June related to reopening

We knew that reopening would lead to a rise in #covid19 cases. No surprise.

We also advised against reopening before we had better systems for outbreak detection/monitoring in place

Now we are back to this: need to test/trace/isolate quickly or you know where we are headed.

If I had to focus efforts quickly on two things, they would be:

•masks, esp in high risk situations/ for vulnerable people (ideally higher filtrate than regular cloth ones)

•avoiding crowds/closed spaces/close contact settings (Japan 3 C’s approach) to stop superspread

Longer term efforts that must happen ASAP but may take more time:

•scaling up testing/decreasing testing turn-around time for PCR

•scaling up tracing efforts, potentially speeding up using digital platforms/reducing time between exposure—> quarantine