Coronavirus Surges in Parts of the U.S. After Memorial Day — See What's Happening in Your State

Several states, such as Arizona and Utah, are seeing their highest new case totals of the entire pandemic

Covid hotspot map
Photo: Martin Schwartz/PEOPLE

Cases of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, are spiking in nearly two dozen states and Puerto Rico in the weeks after Memorial Day weekend, and as they reopen to more regular business.

In 21 states and territories — Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington — new COVID-19 cases are trending sharply upward, according to The New York Times.

And in several states, such as Arizona, Utah, Texas and North Carolina, they are now seeing their highest number of new daily cases of the entire pandemic — more than they ever saw in April, at the nationwide height of the outbreak.

Many of these states are also experiencing an increase in hospitalizations and are running out of hospital bed capacity. In Texas, for example, they’ve seen a 36 percent increase in cases since Memorial Day, The Washington Post reported. Hospitalizations in the state have also hit record highs for two consecutive days, with 1,935 hospitalizations on Monday and 2,056 on Tuesday.

In Arizona, new hospitalizations went up by 49 percent since Memorial Day, and as of Monday, 76 percent of the state’s intensive care unit beds are in use.

Local officials in these areas reported that tourist areas were packed over the holiday weekend. Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks was now-infamously filled with partygoers at bars and pools in the area, leading public health officials to urge them to quarantine for 14 days and get tested for COVID-19.

Ozarks party
Partiers at a pool in the Lake of the Ozarks over Memorial Day Weekend. Scott Pasmore/Twitter

“This reckless behavior endangers countless people and risks setting us back substantially from the progress we have made in slowing the spread of COVID-19,” County Executive Dr. Sam Page said in the days after.

At least one of the Ozarks partiers has since tested positive for COVID-19.

As of Wednesday, more than 1,990,100 people in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least 112,174 people have died.

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