Immune To COVID? New Study Suggests Why

The U.S. now has more than 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the outbreak is not slowing.

New coronavirus infections are rising in at least 20 states, but officials continue to lift restrictions across the country.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Thursday that the resurgence is a sign that authorities in those states “haven’t been able to isolate what the source of the infection is.”

“When you look at states like Arizona and Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina — those are where the big outbreaks are right now; Florida to some degree seems to be going up — it’s not a second wave. They never really got rid of the first wave,” Gottlieb said on the CNBC show “Squawk Box.”

“If you look at Texas and Arizona, for example, they really weren’t that hard hit relative to other states during February and March. And so, they just had some infection; they had persistent infection. Now, we’re starting to see it go back up as they reopen,” he said, adding that authorities there “haven’t been able to do the contact tracing to find a source or a group of activities that they’re able to take action on.”

Arizona has reported an average of more than 1,000 new cases every day this week — the highest per capita rate in the U.S., NPR reported. Health experts said the surges are not just a result of more testing.

"It's very clear that it's a real increase in community spread," Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, told NPR. "It's not some artifact of additional testing."

Nationwide, officials are confirming 20,000 to 25,000 new cases a day, according to Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

"And about 800 to 1,000 people a day are dying of this virus," Jha told NPR.

"It seems that we, the U.S., has given up and accepted this disease as a facet of life," Jeffrey Shaman of the Columbia University School of Public Health said. "It didn't have to be this way, and it still doesn't going forward."

"There’s a lot of stupid floating around out there," said South Carolina's Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, as he asked people to continue wearing masks in public.

In addition to more than 2 million confirmed cases, the U.S. has recorded more than 113,500 deaths. Worldwide, there have been more than 418,500 deaths and 7.43 million infections.

Latest Updates

United States:

-A North Carolina judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday against Ace Speedway in Alamance County, which had been holding events that violated the state's social distancing rules. Health officials had previously told the racetrack owners to shut down but they defied those instructions, The Associated Press reported, and the local sheriff refused to cite them. The judge's order forces the track to close until at least June 19, when a hearing is scheduled.

-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released a 143-page plan to reopen the state's public schools on schedule in August, but said that ultimately the way forward is up to each school district. Districts have been waiting for weeks for state guidance, and many have moved ahead with making their plans for reopening.

-Disneyland announced plans to reopen on July 17. The Downtown Disney District and Disney hotels are also set to open in July, according to a statement from the company. Due to limited capacity, theme park visitors will have to make reservations ahead of time. A number of other new measures are also in place. The plans are subject to approval by local and state officials.

-An update by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington forecasts nearly 170,000 COVID-19 deaths by Oct. 1. The forecast includes a range of 133,110 to 290,222 deaths. Daily deaths are expected to decrease through June and July then remain relatively stable through August. But the model forecasts a sharp rise in deaths in September. “If the U.S. is unable to check the growth in September, we could be facing worsening trends in October, November, and the following months if the pandemic, as we expect, follows pneumonia seasonality,” IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray said in a statement. The states with the earliest uptick in deaths, according to current modeling, are Florida, Arizona, Georgia and Colorado.

-Surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago performed a double-lung transplant on a patient whose lungs were irreversibly damaged by COVID-19. The patient, a Hispanic woman in her 20s, spent six weeks in the COVID ICU on a ventilator and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a life support machine that does the work of the heart and lungs, the hospital said in a news release. “A lung transplant was her only chance for survival,” Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the hospital's transplant program, said. The patient had to test negative for COVID-19 before she could be added to the transplant wait list.

-About 1.5 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week. Nearly 21 million people are officially classified as unemployed.

-SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay reopened Thursday with new restrictions, The Associated Press reported. Reservations are required and visitors age 2 and up will be required to wear masks. Everyone will have a temperature screening at the parks' entrances.

Worldwide:

-The European Commission will begin reopening external borders beginning July 1. European countries will list non-European Union countries for which travel restrictions can be lifted based on criteria created by the commission.

-Russia has reported more than a half million coronavirus infections after adding 8,779 new cases Thursday. More than 6,500 people have died.

For the latest coronavirus information in your county and a full list of important resources to help you make the smartest decisions regarding the disease, check out our dedicated COVID-19 page.

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