Globally, confirmed cases have exceeded 10 million, with 2,510,337 of those in the US, per Johns Hopkins University.
The growth of new US cases could have multiple causes, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, the nation's top doctor, said in an interview with Business Insider on Saturday.
"In some places it may be because they did in fact reopen too early," Adams told Business Insider. "In other cases it may be that they reopened right on time and that the governmental institutions and public health institutions did everything right, but that the citizens did not have the will or desire or the follow through to do the social distancing that we have recommended, and to wear coverings as we have recommended."
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Nearly half of US states started reopening in late April and early May without meeting White House requirements, which dictated that states should wait to see downward trends in cases or positive tests before reopening, as Business Insider's Aria Bendix recently reported.
Rhode Island's first phase of reopening started on May 9, after Gov. Gina Raimondo said that cases and hospitalizations had held steady for two weeks, with a 25% drop in new cases in that time period. Since then, average new cases have continued to decline, with hospitalizations dropping below 100 on Friday.
Gov. Raimondo had said back in April that, before reopening, Rhode Island would need to meet requirements that included 14 days with decreasing new cases, the capacity to quickly identify community spread, adequate capacity in the healthcare system, and plans for long-term social distancing measures.
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