A quick reopening, a surge in infections, and a U.S. recovery at risk

ROCK HILL, S.C. (Reuters) - When Texas reopened bars for the Memorial Day weekend last month, cooped-up millennials and Gen Zers took full advantage, flouting social distancing rules to pack clubs and pushing their credit card spending in the next two weeks back to 2019 levels.

That brief fling with a more fulsome economic reopening, replicated in southern states like Florida and South Carolina, has boomeranged in a resurgence of novel coronavirus cases that is now changing the nature of the pandemic and likely to test the strength of any broader economic rebound.

The reports of widening outbreaks in places like Florida and Texas have noted that it is now younger adults who are getting infected with COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. That could temper the death rate since young adults are less likely to die from the disease, but could also upend the country's patchwork economic reopening.

Already fitful, the situation may become murkier as some localities backtrack on reopening plans, stores re-shutter, and Americans sort themselves into those willing to risk more exposure and those still abiding by health guidelines.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/quick-reopening-surge-infections-u-162020425.html