The past Thursday, Dr. Birx, who serves as the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, held a press conference and provided an assessment of how states are handling the battle with the coronavirus. Based on the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive, Dr. Birx identified states that are currently hot spots. She also used the information to identify future hot spots. With a positive test rate between 10-11%, Florida was not mentioned as a future hot spot. Birx said, “We do have two states that have 35 percent positives, and that’s New York and New Jersey. So that confirms very clearly that that’s a very clear and important hot zone.” She also mentioned Louisiana as a hot spot with 26 percent of their tests coming back positive. She also singled out Michigan, Connecticut, Indiana, Georgia, Illinois as “where the next hot spots are coming”. Those states reported that 15 percent of their tests positive.” Birx said Colorado, D.C., Rhode Island, Conneticut and Massachusetts are at 13 percent for positive tests. Birx said there are a group of states coming in at 10%, which includes Florida, and she highlighted the good job being done in California and Washington which reported eight percent positive test rates.
