“Until they have that capacity, they’re going to always run the risk of these chains of transmission getting started,” he said. “Until we get to the point of being able to do the simple public-health measures in all 50 states, we’re going to have this risk occurring and I do think we will periodically have these flares that occur in different states at different times.”
Even within states, public health officials have struggled to make consistent progress across all of their cities and counties.
California’s Spike
California, for instance, managed to stifle outbreaks in the urban San Francisco and Los Angeles areas only to see cases spike in the rural Central Valley.
Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state Health and Human Services agency, said the outbreak appeared to have been driven in part by the valley’s big farms, which employ large numbers of migrant workers. Those workers, mostly Spanish speakers, weren’t hearing the state’s messages about wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, Ghaly said.
While California is now pouring resources into tamping down the valley outbreak, Ghaly said more may follow, even as the state’s overall virus numbers improve. The number of Californians hospitalized with Covid-19 has now dropped below 4,000, after peaking above 7,000 in July.
“We are continuing to learn how to address this broad geography,” Ghaly said. “I’m sure we’ll have some counties that experience increased transmission in the months to come. We feel we’re better prepared than we were in the summer and certainly in the spring.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.