Just looking at new cases today, I think we are going to be talking about an R of 1.1 to 1.2 in the U.S. soon
That is the R in Georgia, I regret to say. See the last graph on this screen:
https://www.ajc.com/news/coron…d/jvoLBozRtBSVSNQDDAuZxH/
As you see, cases are at record high, and deaths are approaching the previous high. Hospital occupancy is rising gradually, in the "Current hospital cases" graph. For purely personal reasons, I hope the hospitals are not overwhelmed again in the next few weeks. I am scheduled for elective surgery, which was postponed when the epidemic began.
Georgia is not the worst. The number of cases is increasing faster in Florida, Arizona, Texas, California, Tennessee and North Carolina. Apart from California, these are all southern states. The reason it is increasing in the deep south is obvious to anyone who lives here. The governments in these states are opposed to healthcare measures such as Obamacare and Medicaid expansion. In rural areas, health outcomes such as longevity and infant mortality are at third-world levels. These states have not implemented any steps to reduce the epidemic, such as case tracking. In agriculture and meatpacking counties, there are many illegal immigrants who get no healthcare, and they live in crammed, unhealthy conditions, so they spread the epidemic at the natural rate, around 3%. As you see in the acj website (above), the highest per-capita rates in Georgia are in rural districts. This is unlike New York State, where they are in urban areas.
It is surprising the rates in Georgia are not at the same level as third world countries such as Brazil. They may well be, soon, unless the government takes steps to prevent it. I am not optimistic the state government will do anything before the situation gets out of hand, returning to the R0 level of ~4 that we had in March. The Federal government will not do anything under any circumstances, as we have seen. The president and vice president insist that the pandemic has ended, except for "embers." As far as I know from mass media reports, they have no plans to do anything at all about it.