Twenty-Two US States Record Jump In Coronavirus Cases As More Americans Leave Their Homes For Work, Protests

As more Americans are now leaving their homes due to lifted lockdown restrictions, there is a spike in the total number of coronavirus cases in several U.S. states.

More number of Americans are now leaving their homes to socialize, go to work, or join the protest against police brutality sparked by George Floyd’s death, several U.S. has reported higher rates of new coronavirus cases.

COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. has affected more than 2 million people and has claimed the lives of more than 113,000 people in the country alone. Worldwide, coronavirus has left more than 400,000 people dead and 693,000 infected.

Across the U.S., there are about 22 states that have recently noticed an increase in the number of coronavirus infections and 20 states have observed a decline. There are about 8 states that continue to remain steady.

Florida is one of the states that has seen the largest spike in the total number of COVID-19 infected recently after lifting of the lockdown restrictions. The number of cases in Florida has increased by as much as 46% in the past week as most of the state has now entered the second phase of opening up after a strict lockdown.

The World Health Organization’s Director, General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, raised his concerns over the increasing severity of the pandemic in specific parts of the world.

"Yesterday, more than 136,000 cases were reported -- the most in a single day so far. Almost 75% of yesterday's cases come from 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia," he said during the WHO press briefing on Monday, June 8.

However, experts and researchers claim that the situation would have been much worse if there was no lockdown implemented in the first place.

Research published by the UC Berkeley team published today in the journal Nature revealed that emergency health measures “significantly and substantially slowed” the spread of coronavirus in six major countries.

The researchers claimed that early and strict lockdown measures in the six countries prevented as many as 530 million COVID-19 infections. The study was conducted on data retrieved from China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the U.S.