US infection rate rising outside New York as states open up

New York, May 7 (AP) Take New York metropolitan area's progress against coronavirus out of equation and numbers show rest of US is moving in wrong direction, with kwn infection rate rising even as states move to lift ir lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday.

New confirmed infections per day in U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

And public health officials warn that failure to flatten curve and drive down infection rate in places could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people are allowed to venture out and businesses reopen.

“Make mistakes: This virus is still circulating in our community, perhaps even more w than in previous weeks” said Linda Ochs, director of Health Department in Shawnee County, Kansas.

Elsewhere around world, Britain's official coronavirus death toll, at more than 29,000, topped that of Italy to become highest in Europe and second-highest in world behind United States. official number of dead worldwide surpassed a quarter-million, by Johns Hopkins' count, though true toll is believed to be much higher.

densely packed New York metropolitan area, consisting of about 20 million people across a region that encompasses city's rrn suburbs, Long Island and rrn New Jersey, has been hardest-hit corner of country, accounting for at least one-third of nation's 70,000 deaths.

When still locked-down area is included, new infections in US appear to be declining, according to AP analysis. It found that five-day rolling aver for new cases has decreased from 9.3 per 100,000 people three weeks ago on April 13 to 8.6 on Monday.

But subtracting New York area from analysis changes story. Without it, rate of new cases in U.S. increased over same period from 6.2 per 100,000 people to 7.5.

While daily number of new deaths in New York area has declined markedly in recent weeks, it has essentially plateaued in rest of U.S. Without greater New York, rolling five-day aver for new deaths per 500,000 people dropped slightly from 1.86 on April 20th to 1.82 on Monday.

U.S. testing for virus has been expanded, and that has probably contributed to increasing rate of confirmed infections. But it doesn't explain entire increase, said Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang, a public health researcher at University of California at Los Angeles.

“This increase is t because of testing. It's a real increase,” he said.

Pockets of America far from New York City are seeing omius trends.

Deaths in Iowa surged to a new daily high of 19 on Tuesday, and 730 workers at a single Tyson Foods pork plant tested positive. On Monday, Shawnee County, home to Topeka, Kansas, reported a doubling of cases from last week on same day that business restrictions began to ease.

Gallup, New Mexico, is under a strict lockdown until Thursday because of an outbreak, with guarded roadblocks to prevent travel in and out and a ban on more than two people in a vehicle. Authorities have deployed water tankers, hospital is running short, and a high school gym is w a recuperation center with 60 oxygen-supplied beds.

On Monday, a model from University of Washington nearly doubled its projection of COVID-19 deaths in U.S. to around 134,000 through early August, with a range of 95,000 to nearly 243,000.

Dr. Christopher Murray, director of institute that created projections, said increase is largely because most states are expected to ease restrictions by next week.

Without stay-at-home orders and similar measures, Murray said, “we would have had exponential growth, much larger epidemics and deaths in staggering numbers.” But cooperation is waning, with cellphone location data showing people are getting out more, even before ir states reopen, he said.

President Donald Trump, asked about projections before traveling to Arizona to visit a mask factory, disputed accuracy of models in general and said keeping ecomy closed carries deadly costs of its own, such as drug abuse and suicide.

“We have to get our country open,” Trump said. (AP) AMS