BALTIMORE — A beautiful weekend in has got Baltimore got a lot of people out of their homes to enjoy the nice weather and watch the blue angels and WMAR got a lot of reports of people not practicing social distancing and gathering in large groups.
Health experts are concerned that if people don't follow these restrictions or if they're lifted too early, there's going to be a spike in coronavirus cases. The director of Johns Hopkins for Health and Security, who's also one of the doctors advising Governor Larry Hogan on the coronavirus task force, said he's worried there will be a new wave of cases through the summer and fall, not just here in Maryland, but across the country.
He stressed that nothing has changed about this virus, it's still highly transmissible, so if the orders are lifted we're just going to be back to where we were in February and March.
The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has similar concerns. He said, "there's no doubt in my mind that when you pull back mitigation you're going to start to see cases crop up here and there and if you're not able to handle them you're going to see another peak, a spike."
As of Monday, 32 states have partially re-open. Arizona, Florida, Indiana and Missouri just added to that list.
Everyone wants to get back to normal, but it's not an easy task.
"We think that for many states that are reopening that there will be potentially an increase in the number of infections as a result of this reopening," said Youyang Gu, the Creator covid19-projections.com.
Here in Maryland, we still have many restrictions in place like keeping six feet from other people, wearing face masks in stores and public transportation, as well as not gathering with more than 10 people. For these orders to be lifted, there has to be a two week period of a decrease in numbers.
Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3 were the first time we've had two straight days of declining numbers for hospitalizations in the state. That is one of the factors considered in determine when things can re-open.
