Michigan, Louisiana and Georgia are expected to become the next coronavirus hot spots in the United States – as the death toll rose by 911 in one day, bringing the total past 6,000, and the number of infections across the country hit 245,000.
Those states could be the next hot spots based on the current rate of deaths and positive coronavirus tests across the country, according to the White House COVID-19 task force coordinator Dr Deborah Birx.
Meanwhile, the proportion of tests coming back positive in states like Indiana, Illinois and Connecticut are now also ringing alarm bells for health officials.
In terms of current hot spots, New York continues to bear the brunt as the epicenter of the outbreak in the US with more than 100,000 infections and 2,935 deaths.
The state recorded 562 news deaths and 10,482 additional cases as of Friday.
New York and New Jersey, which remain the states with the highest death tolls and number of infections, currently has a 35 percent rate of positive tests.
‘We do have two states that have 35 percent positives and that’s New York and New Jersey. So that confirms very clearly that that’s a very clear and an important hot zone,’ Dr Birx said on Thursday during a White House briefing.
‘Michigan, Connecticut, Indiana, Georgia, Illinois – that should tell you where the next hot sports are coming – are at 15 percent test positive.
‘Then Colorado, D.C., Rhode Island and Massachusetts are at 13 percent.’
Dr Birx said California and Washington state remained steady at an 8 percent rate.
New Jersey, with a 2.1 percent fatality rate, follows New York in terms of current hot spots with 537 deaths and 25,590 infections. It had 182 new deaths and 3,335 new cases in the last day.
Michigan is now the state with the third highest death rate after reporting a spike in its figures in the few days.
There are fears that the next epicenter will be the city of Detroit given the sudden increase in the state.
The state’s death toll had reached 417 on Thursday – an increase of 82 – with more than 10,791 confirmed cases.
Louisiana, which has a positive test rate of 26 percent, is now at 310 deaths – up 41 from the day before – and has 9,159 cases.
Prior to the increase in Michigan’s cases, Louisiana had been expected to become the next epicenter after New Orleans recorded a huge jump in cases following its Mardi Gras celebrations.
Earlier this week, Louisiana saw its largest surge in new cases over a 24 hour period with infections increasing by 1,200. It was the state’s biggest one-day spike in both deaths and infections since the coronavirus started spreading rapidly.
About 90 percent of Americans – or 297 million people – are now in some form of lockdown due to the coronavirus
California and Washington state – where the US outbreak first occurred – follow in terms of both confirmed cases and death toll.
There have been 244 deaths and 11,126 cases in California, while Washington has recorded 272 deaths and 6,595 cases.
Health officials are maintaining a close watch on infection rates and the death tolls in each state to see what parts of the country will follow New York.
Officials this week predicted that between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans will die from the coronavirus.
With a current death toll of more than 6,000, the United States is now dwarfing the number of deaths officially reported in China (3,337) where the outbreak first originated back in December.
While the death toll in Italy (13,915) and Spain (10,935) is still higher, the US eclipsed the number of infections in the hard-hit European countries with both Italy (115,242) and Spain (117,720) reporting only around half the number of infections.
About 90 percent of the US, or 297 million people, are currently in some form of lockdown to help stop the spread of the virus.
At least 38 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico were all in lockdown as of Thursday.
Florida, Georgia, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Texas are among the latest to urge residents to avoid going outside to help slow the spread of the deadly virus.
Some states, however, are still refusing to order lockdowns with the governor of Missouri insisting it is down to ‘individual responsibility’.
Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa currently have no known lockdown measures. Some cities in states including Utah, Wyoming and Alabama have their own local orders but no statewide mandates.
It comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to changes it guidance for hot spot areas in the US and urge people living in those cities or states to wear masks or other face coverings outside.
Dr Birx has also said that she can tell some people are still not adhering to social distancing guidelines in hard hit states due to the curve in new cases.
Just a few days into a new, 30-day extension of the guidelines, Dr Birx said data showed not enough people were following them. The recommendations, first unveiled on March 16, encourage people not to gather in groups larger than 10 and to avoid dining in restaurants or bars.
‘When we said that, now over 16 days ago, that was serious,’ Dr Birx said, noting that the people who were now becoming sick would have gotten the virus after the guidelines first went out.
President Donald Trump appeared to not like the message that Americans need to do better at social distancing.
‘Deborah, aren’t you referring to just a few states, because many of those states are dead flat,’ Trump said, referring to states where the virus had not taken off dramatically and pushed up the national ‘curve’ of deaths.
Birx responded that it was true that some states were flat but that an outbreak in a new city would spoil that.
Trump has faced criticism for playing down the outbreak in its initial stages. He said early on that the virus was under control and repeatedly compared it to the seasonal flu. Last week he argued the time was right to re-open the U.S. economy, complaining that the cure was worse than the problem and setting a goal of economic rebirth by Easter on April 12.
Bodies are loaded onto a refrigerated truck outside of Wyckoff Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, as the number of victims from coronavirus continues to grow. There were 911 new deaths recorded in the United States on Thursday
Wyckoff Medical Center on Thursday where bodies were loaded onto a refrigerated truck. The death toll in New York state rose by 256 on Thursday and the city continues to be the epicenter of the battle against coronavirus in the United States
Pictured, dead bodies are loaded onto a truck outside Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York on Tuesday
A COVID-19 patient arrives at a field hospital built by Christian humanitarian organization Samaritans Purse in Central Park
On Sunday, he announced that he had ditched that plan after Dr Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the country, convinced him that projections showed more than two million people in the US could die without further stringent measures.
But after a few days of adopting a more somber tone, Trump on Thursday seemed chagrined that Dr Birx was focusing on areas where those measures had not been followed sufficiently rather than on states in which the virus had not taken off.
‘It’s hard to blame flat-liners for not doing a good job,’ Trump said, sparking Dr Birx to express with emotion, ‘No, no, I don’t want to say that!’
Trump made clear he did not want headlines suggesting that not enough was being done, and he went on to explain repeatedly what he believed Dr Birx meant as she remained standing on the stage.
‘She wasn’t talking about the average of everything, she was talking about an individual state,’ Trump said. ‘Our states, generally speaking – it’s like lots of different countries all over – we have, many of those ‘countries’ are doing a phenomenal job. They’re really flat, and I think that’s what you meant.’
Birx responded simply: ‘Thank you, sir.’
She went on to say, nonetheless, that not all US states had followed the guidelines.
‘We know what can be done. And others are doing it and most of the people in the United States are doing it. It’s our communities, it’s every American that has to make these changes,’ she said.
President Donald Trump warned Americans to brace for a ‘hell of a bad two weeks’ ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained
A graph by computer scientist Mark Handley shows how the US’s trajectory compared to other countries until March 28
A separate graph shows how the states vary in comparison to Italy until March 31