New COVID-19 Cases Are Down Nationwide, but Experts Warn Not to Relax Mitigation Measures

By Mary Anne R. First Posted: Aug 28, 2020 10:19 PM EDT

New cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) across the United States went down around 12 percent on average for the last seven days. But experts said mitigation measures should not be relaxed and keep an eye on the upcoming flu season.

The country is still averaging more than 900 deaths per day. COVID-19 cases in states that are massively affected by the disease have started to decline steadily.

An analysis of data from John Hopkins University showed that new cases are down in Arizona by around 36 percent, while California and Texas COVID-19 cases fell by about 29 percent. Florida's COVID-19 cases are down by 26 percent.

"Everyone doesn't have to perform perfectly on every mitigation strategy; we need a lot of people doing a lot of things well," Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida, said in a report.

Meanwhile, new COVID-19 cases are surging across the Midwest region, including in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and North Dakota. Each of these states is seeing a peak in their COVID-19 cases.

Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, said that some are "getting stuck" in the yellow zone of between five and 10 percent of tests coming back positive.

"We don't need to have a third wave in the heartland right now," Redfield said. He added that we need to prevent that, especially that we are now nearing the fall season.

Salemi noted that everybody has been getting the COVID-19 fatigue, adding that the children are starting to get back in school. He said they have been seeing COVID-19 cases decline for several weeks.

"There is a strong desire to get back to our 'normal lives,' to exhale, and give our mental health a bit of a boost. But history has been telling already," Salemi said in a report.

COVID-19 Cases Decline

Report said that a decline in testing numbers might cause nationwide COVID-19 cases to decline.

A change in CDC guidelines enforced this caused concerns that testing counts could fall even lower and that infections could be missed.

In its updated testing guidelines, the CDC said that those who come into close contact with a known case of the virus but do not show any symptoms "do not necessarily need a test."

This is applicable unless they are vulnerable or their doctor or a state or a local public health official recommended one. Previous advisories said that testing everyone who came into close contact with an infected individual is needed.

The CDC noted that because of the "potential for asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission, it is important that contacts of individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection be quickly identified and tested."

Several states have already announced that they will not follow the new CDC testing recommendations. Ben Lopman, a professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, called that the testing guidelines revision "damaging."

Lopman said that it goes against what so many public health officials have been calling for, which is not just testing, but testing people early in their infection and handing results quickly.

"That's how you use testing to help control the epidemic," Lopman said.