Concerns about a California winter COVID wave increase as Europe sees rise in cases
As the coronavirus pandemic expands, anxiety grows and concerns mount about its impact on the state of California and the nation.
As the coronavirus pandemic expands, anxiety grows and concerns mount about its impact on the state of California and the nation. Here, we examine a growing number of COVID-19 cases in Europe, and consider whether the United States — with a greater number of cases and a far smaller population than Europe — might see something similar.
The number of cases is climbing in the U.K., France and Spain, while the United States hasn’t seen its first case in nearly a week. Meanwhile, Italy — a nation with a much smaller population than any of those affected — is grappling with a surge in cases.
“We’re all on edge,” said Anne Schuchat, who is the White House’s deputy press secretary and who served as assistant secretary for the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George W. Bush.
In fact, the number of U.S. cases had actually dropped dramatically in recent days, with just a few hundred cases as of Tuesday — only 17,000 of the nearly 200,000 new cases announced on Wednesday. Still, that’s a lot of cases to deal with, according to Dr. Michael Osterholm, a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a medical doctor who was in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the mid-1980s.
“The U.S. case count could rise to about twice the size of the current outbreak in Europe and the same number in the U.K., and that’s not beyond the realm of possibility, especially if there’s any type of community transmission in the U.S.,” he told CNN.
A recent case in California’s Central Valley comes after several in San Francisco and Los Angeles have been affected. The city of San Francisco saw its first confirmed case on Friday, March 18 — a man in his 50s from Solano County who had traveled to Texas. (Read: New US case comes as California hospital surge hits)
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On Tuesday, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D