Signals Mount That Covid-19 Is Returning to the New York Area

(Bloomberg) -- Covid-19 cases are reaching three-month highs in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, marking the return of the virus to a region that has already suffered America's heaviest toll.

The strain on the health-care system is so far limited compared with the disasters of March and April, but the trend is concerning. Newly reported cases in the three states have roughly doubled in a month.

The new cases have significantly exceeded any increase in testing, as shown by the ratio of positives to overall tests, according to John Hopkins University data.

Covid-19 hospitalizations recently hit a seven-week high in New Jersey, a 10-week high in New York and a three-and-a-half month high in Connecticut, according to Covid Tracking Project data.

The U.S. posted 36,342 new cases Monday, bringing the total to about 7.5 million cumulatively, according to Johns Hopkins. More than 210,000 have died. Daily cases started climbing again around mid-September and seem to have partially plateaued.

But the aggregate tally -- affected by waning cases in some of the largest states -- obscures the fact that cases are indeed increasing in the majority of states, with parts of the Midwest and West suffering their worst blows yet.

Elsewhere in the U.S.:

• The seven-day average of new cases in North Dakota and Montana reached 423 and 375, respectively, both records.
• In Wisconsin, which has had one of America's worst per capita infection rates, the one-week average fell to the lowest in five days.
• Arizona, which was hit in the July Sun Belt surge, reported a spike of 864 new virus cases, the largest single-day tally since Sept. 18.

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