“Well, it’s certainly a state-to-state issue, as we look across the country, obviously the narrative is the COVID cases are rising, but testing is rising exponentially. We’ve now tested almost 10 percent of our country,” Meadows said as states experienced a surge in the cases of infection in the past few weeks as reopenings happen.
On Sunday, Florida surpassed 200,000 CCP virus or COVID-19 cases, and on Saturday it recorded the highest number on a single day, 11,458 cases, surpassing a recorded 11,434 cases in New York in mid-April.
Cases of infection were overall on the rise in 34 states over the past week, with 12 recordings an increase of more than 50 percent, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Three states—Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Vermont—are reporting a decline in cases.
Nearly half of the states have halted their reopening plans amid the surge and a growing number of them have mandated the use of masks and face-coverings while in public.
The states with mandatory use of masks are California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
“And yet when we look at masks and the wearing of masks, that's done on a location basis, when you can’t have social distancing, but certainly a national mandate is not in order,” said Meadows. “We’re allowing governors and mayors to weigh in on that.”
Around the same time, as the cases of infection surged in Texas, nine mayors in the state wrote an open letter to the residents, urging them to wear masks.
"We're not here to scare you. We're not playing games or politics. The virus is here. Infections are rising. Hospital capacity is filling up," said Mayor of San Antonio Ron Nirenberg while sharing the letter on Twitter.
"We are not asking you to stay home, but we are asking you to mask up and social distance where possible," said the mayors in the open letter.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he doesn't believe making masks mandatory across the country is important, but also said that he is "all for masks" and that he "thinks masks are good."
The study found that wearing masks prevented over 78,000 infections in Italy between April 6 and May 9 and over 66,000 infections in New York City between April 17 and May 9.
"Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the pandemic trends in the three epicenters," said the study that had also analyzed cases in Wuhan.