Coronavirus still spreading at epidemic rates

The virus is still spreading at epidemic rates in nearly half of U.S.

The virus is still spreading at epidemic rates in nearly half of U.S. states, with Texas at the top of the list, according to a study by Imperial College London. “There’s evidence that the U.S. is not under control, as an entire country,” Samir Bhatt, a senior lecturer in geostatistics at the college, told The Post.  There's good news, too: The study found that the virus's spread has slowed to a trickle in blue states but the numbers look grim across much of the South and Midwest aka Trumpistan or Trumpanistan. Read our health desk's story to learn where your state ranks. To get a sense of what a gargantuan effort it will take to safely reopen the country, read two new stories that illustrate the problem in microcosm: The first looks at what a Michigan machine tool plant went through after two of its 40-some employees tested positive for the coronavirus last month — a hasty shutdown, technicians in hazmat suits, offices doused with sanitizer and workers spitting into vials in the parking lot as United Precision Products struggled to reopen its doors without inviting a mass outbreak. The second story is about a county in Maryland that is cobbling together a small army of contact tracers — hiring out-of-work school health employees to track down hundreds of people who may have been exposed to covid-19 patients in the area and convince them to get tested. It's grueling detective work, and it's just beginning. One study estimates the United States will need 100,000 contact tracers to keep new outbreaks from spreading widely. As for the roots of the outbreak in the United States, our national security desk looked back at the unintended consequences of President Trump's hastily conceived ban on travelers from virus-stricken Europe in March. Announced with no warning during an Oval Office address, the travel ban caused Americans overseas to rush back home lest they be stranded. Thousands of people crowded together in long lines at airports, some coughing into their sleeves before filtering across the country — delivering one last infusion of the virus to the United States. “It was people passing through a pinhole,” a student caught in the trans-Atlantic crush told The Post. “I can guarantee you that people were infected.” More important news Illinois' efforts to stay mostly closed down are being undermined as all five states on its border relax or abolish their quarantine restrictions. Federal prosecutors say a 34-year-old Georgia worker faked coronavirus, causing his boss to shut the business down and quarantine co-workers at a cost of more than $100,000. A government program to send surplus farm produce to hungry Americans has been hobbled by baffling decision-making. It snubbed established nonprofits and food distribution companies and instead giving tens of millions of dollars to companies that were ill-equipped to move the food. Hit harder by the virus than any other Canadian province, Quebec is also moving the most aggressively to reopen. Truckers are being held up for weeks at the border between Kenya and Tanzania to be tested for the virus, demonstrating how difficult it is for countries to let essential trade in while keeping the virus out.

Live updates and more Track deaths and confirmed cases in the U.S. and across the world.  Where states are reopening and what the rules are in each one. Post reporters across the world are publishing live dispatches nearly 24 hours a day. Read the latest about what's happening in the D.C. area. Submit a question and The Post may answer it in a future story, live chat or newsletter.