You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Today we're going to take a look at where we are in the coronavirus pandemic,

how we're doing and how we got here.

I am concerned that Arizona reopened too quickly.

That's the mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, talking to NPR this month.

Our governor lifted the stay-at-home order in mid-May and immediately went to

situations such as open nightclubs with no masks.

We sent a message that we had defeated COVID-19 and we had not.

We are really in a bad situation where we need more resources for our medical system and help with

testing. Now there are well over 3,000 new cases a day in Arizona.

And Arizona ICUs have been at around 90% capacity for most of July.

But the problems the mayor was highlighting.

Not enough resources, not enough testing, not enough people taking the virus seriously.

Those are not limited to Arizona right now.

And there's some of the same problems the US was confronting in March and April.

Our science-desk colleague Richard Harris has been covering the pandemic since then.

Richard, this is kind of frustrating, right?

This is still like the US in quite a bit of trouble.

Indeed, we are still in a lot of trouble or maybe back in trouble again after a period of a

few months when things at least have been trending in the right direction.

And there are a number of reasons why for one thing after a terrible start of the beginning of

the epidemic, testing improved a lot over the spring. But the number of cases has risen so dramatically

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