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Birx warns 9 cities, California's central valley about increasing coronavirus cases

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NN)The White House coronavirus task force is warning states about an uptick in coronavirus test positivity rates in a number of new cities this week.

Task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said there are encouraging signs across the South, a region hit hard by a surging pandemic in recent weeks, but she outlined new areas of concern in a private phone call with state and local officials Wednesday, according to a recording of the call obtained by the journalism non-profit Center for Public Integrity.
 
"We are concerned that both Baltimore and Atlanta remain at a very high level," Birx said on the call. "Kansas City, Portland, Omaha, of course what we talked about in the Central Valley (in California)."
 
We are seeing a slow uptick in test positivity in cases in places like Chicago, Boston and Detroit and DC," she said, adding that the virus has entered a new phase.
"This outbreak is different from the March, April outbreak in that it's in both rural and urban areas," Birx said.
 
Birx told CNN on Sunday that the deadly virus is now more "extraordinarily widespread" than it was in the early days of the pandemic.
nessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Virginia.
"Although we're seeing improvements in some of the red states and some of the states have actually moved from being in a red category -- that was more than 10% test positivity -- to under 10%, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia moved back into the yellow states status," Birx said. "Their work needs to continue to intensify to continue to bring down case counts."...
 
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House health experts are warning of an uptick in the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 in U.S. cities including Boston, Chicago and Washington, urging local leaders to maintain health safety measures to avoid a surge.

“This is a predictor of trouble ahead,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Thursday.

Fauci was asked on CNN about comments made by his White House coronavirus task force colleague, Dr. Deborah Birx, identifying new areas of concern in major cities, even as authorities see encouraging signs across the South.

Baltimore and Atlanta remain at a “very high level,” as well as Kansas City, Portland, Omaha and California’s Central Valley, Birx told state and local officials in a telephone call Wednesday. A recording of the call was obtained by the journalism nonprofit Center for Public Integrity.

White House data shows small increases in the percentage of positive COVID-10 tests in Chicago, Boston and Detroit and those places need to “get on top of it”, Birx said.

Even in cities and states where most people are doing things right, Fauci said, a segment of people not wearing masks or following social distancing remains vulnerable to infection and can keep the virus smoldering in U.S. communities.

 

“Unless everybody pulls together, and gets the level way down over baseline, we’re going to continue to see these kind of increases that Dr. Birx was talking about in several of those cities,” Fauci said.

White House coronavirus experts have in recent days sent regular warnings to cities and states not to relax anti-coronavirus measures too much before the virus is under sufficient control.

On average, 1,000 people are dying each day nationwide from COVID-19. The U.S. death toll is now over 157,000, with 4.8 million known cases. (Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive graphic)

President Donald Trump, in contrast, has played down the staying power of the virus, saying on Wednesday “it will go away like things go away” as he urged U.S. schools to reopen on time for face-to-face lessons....

 

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