COVID surge followed a record low drop in social distancing in October, study finds

A study from The COVID States Project found that adherence to social distancing fell to a record law in October ahead of the surge in coronavirus cases.

More than 15,000 people were surveyed each month between April and November across all 50 states, according to The Washington Post.

Compliance with social distancing recommendations, including avoiding crowds, avoiding contact from others, and sanitizing surfaces and washing hands, has dropped since April.

Researchers said that social distancing has declined since the spring, while mask-wearing has increased. The states with the lowest levels of social distancing are currently going through the worst outbreaks.

“The states that have been hit the hardest in the fall have had the lowest levels of social distancing and mask wearing throughout the pandemic,” they wrote.

The percentage of Americans who said they were in a room with people outside their homes in the past 24 hours increased from 26% in April to 45% in October, researchers wrote in the study. The percentage of people who spent time in a group of 11 to 100 others also more than doubled from April to October.

The U.S. surpassed 1 million new COVID-19 cases in the first 10 days of November and also reached a record number of hospitalizations on Nov. 10, The Associated Press reported.

On Thursday, there were 217,664 new cases and 2,879 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Mask-wearing has increased since April through the end of August, and has remained steady ever since, according to researchers. Nearly 77% of respondents said in November they were “very closely adhering to recommendations to wear masks.”