Circles painted to encourage social distancing in a San Francisco park (NYT)
WASHINGTON: When epidemiologists talked about “flattening the curve,” they probably didn’t mean it this way: the US hit its peak coronavirus caseload in April, but since that time the graph has been on a seemingly unending plateau.
That’s unlike several other hard-hit countries which have successfully pushed down their numbers of new cases, including Spain and Italy, which now have bell-shaped curves.
Experts say the prolonged nature of the US epidemic is the result of the cumulative impact of regional outbreaks, as the virus that started out primarily on the coasts and in major cities moves inward.
Layered on top of that are the effects of lifting lockdowns in parts of the country that are experiencing rising cases, as well as a lapse in compliance with social distancing guidelines because of economic hardship, and in some cases a belief that the threat is overstated.
“The US is a large country both in geography and population, and the virus is at very different stages in different parts of the country,” Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told AFP.
The US saw more than 35,000 new cases for several days in April. While that figure has declined, it has still been