Covid-19 cases surge in some states as Americans celebrate Memorial Day weekend

“With the country starting to open up this holiday weekend, I again remind everyone that the coronavirus is not yet contained,” said Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration.

In Alabama’s Gulf Shores, “there are literally thousands of people out here on the beach, and what I’m really pleased to see is that many of these folks, almost all of them, are doing a great job with social distancing,” beachgoer Steve Ricks told CNN affiliate WPMI.

Video from a pool party at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, showed a massive crowd of people crammed together both inside and outside the pool.

“Look at the numbers. You’ll see that on Thursday, more than 20,000 Americans were infected,” said Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former disease detective at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Friday, “that number went up, and there were more than 24,000 Americans newly diagnosed with Covid-19.”

Birx has a message for those refusing to wear masks

Wearing a face mask is critical to reducing the spread of coronavirus, especially since many carriers don’t even know they’re contagious, said Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator.

“There is clear scientific evidence now, by all the droplet experiments that happened and that others have done, to show that a mask does prevent droplets from reaching others,” Birx told “Fox News Sunday.”

She offered a message to those who say they have a right not to wear a mask in public.

In an interview with ABC, Birx said “there’s asymptomatic spread. And that means that people are spreading the virus unknowingly.”

“And this is unusual in the case of respiratory diseases,” Birx said. “So you don’t know who’s infected. And so we really want to be clear all the time that social distancing is absolutely critical. And if you can’t social distance and you’re outside, you must wear a mask.”

Several states see surges in coronavirus cases

States such as North Carolina and Arkansas are seeing major spikes, Yasmin said.

Houston mayor: ‘We’re not equipped’ to handle surge

Texas beaches also saw crowds over the weekend after bars were allowed to reopen, with restrictions.

“We’re not equipped to handle that type of surge,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “We can take about 200 cases a day, for example, with contact tracing and we’re building up that program.”

“The virus is still here,” he said. “There are still people who think it’s a joke, and it’s not a joke. Things have opened up. We’re in stage two in the state of Texas so bars, restaurants, barbershops, you name it, are now open. So (we’re) nervous but we’re going to do everything we can to manage the virus.”

A study leads to encouraging results

There’s a bit of good news when it comes to a possible therapy for Covid-19 patients.

A study appeared to show patients who received transfusions of antibody-filled convalescent plasma seemed to fare better. Convalescent plasma is derived from the blood of recovered coronavirus patients.

“We are encouraged that our initial assessment offers evidence in support of convalescent plasma as an effective intervention,” said Dr. Nicole Bouvier, an associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a co-author on the study.

But more studies are needed to confirm the findings, the researchers said.