Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat told "The Daily Briefing" Friday that she has seen an increasing number of patients with coronavirus symptoms in recent days as the number of cases goes up in parts of the country.
"We have more testing today than ever before and with increased diagnostic capability, we're going to naturally see more cases You know, usually I'm testing and doing nasal swabs and antibody tests," Nesheiwat, the medical director at New York City's CityMD clinics, told host Dana Perino.
"But, for example, yesterday, I had a lot of patients coming in with, they were actually having symptoms [like] shortness of breath, chest pain, body aches, fever ... So I do feel that we have an uptick. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, you know, we've had the protests recently and sadly, some patients are noncompliant. They don't always wear their mask and practice social distancing, as they should be."
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Nesheiwat also suggested that some states may be contributing to the uptick by not strictly following the federal government's reopening guidance.
"And then, of course, you know, in other parts of the country, for example, Texas, Arizona, California, Oregon, we have these upticks," she said. "And, you know, that could be because of the country's reopening and some of those communities, they're jumping straight from shut down, lockdown, straight to phase three instead of following the phase guidelines of phase one, two and three and opening slowly.
"So it's just this convergence of threats [that] may be contributing to the uptick that we're seeing in certain parts of the country."
On Friday, Florida's Department of Health reported 1,902 new cases of COVID-19, surpassing Thursday's previous high of 1,698 cases. South Carolina reported 770 new coronavirus cases, surpassing Thursday's high of 687.
Nesheiwat warned that the new cases she's seen aren't just elderly people.
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"I've had people, young adults, mid-20s into their 30s that were coming in with chest pressure, chest pain, shortness of breath. And so I had to, you know, test them for coronavirus, give them the 14-day quarantine precautions until we get the results in," she said.
"So it's definitely still here, even though overall the number of deaths has declined, the number of hospitalizations has declined. It's still here. And we have to be very vigilant and continuing to adhere to the CDC guidelines because it's very simple. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Practice social distancing."