Deadly Surge: COVID-19 hospitalizations on the rise

(NBC News) As openings increase across the country, so does the concern of a deadly surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Twenty-one states have seen an increase in cases since last week.

In Florida and New Mexico cases are up more than 40 percent.

In Arkansas and Utah, which never had statewide stay-at-home orders, cases are up more than 60 percent.

“These aren’t states where they quelled the epidemic and this is the second wave. They never really got through the first wave,” says former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. “They’ve had this slow burn of infection and now they are having a resurgence.”

It’s the spike in hospitalizations since Memorial Day, from the Carolinas to Arizona, that has health officials especially alarmed.

“I think our current trend is a cautionary tale,” says Dr. Marjorie Bessel, chief clinical officer for Arizona’s Banner Health. “If you are not physically distancing and not doing the other activities we’ve been talking about there will be a price to pay.”

Some governors dealing with an increase in cases attribute it to increased testing, but health officials warn the increase in testing does not explain the increase in hospitalizations.

“If we just act like the virus isn’t there, and or it has magically gone a way, we’re gong to be confronting a much uglier reality and I don’t want to do that,” says Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard Global Health Initiative. “I want to be proactive on this virus.”

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