Coronavirus: New U.S. cases near All-Time high; California, Florida and Texas see record spikes

Weeks after widespread protests and relaxed coronavirus restrictions in many states, the United States saw a near-record one-day spike in new coronavirus cases. The Centers for Disease Control reported 34,313 new infections across the country on Wednesday. That total nears the daily spikes seen at the height of what was then known as the first wave.

The CDC also on Wednesday confirmed 2,336,615 total cases and 121,117 deaths nationwide.

On April 3, the U.S. recorded 34,864 new cases, just slightly higher than today’s total. The all-time high in new cases came three days later on April 6, with 43,438 new infections recorded. That does not bode well for the future.

Also on Wednesday, three of the nation’s most populace states — California, Florida and Texas — reported record high new cases.

The largest of the three, California, saw 7,149 new infections. That’s a jump of 2,000 infections in just 24 hours and by far its largest number of new cases since the outset of the pandemic. The state’s the 14-day infection rate is 5.6 percent. That is up from 5.1 percent. More concerning is a 29 percent increase in hospitalizations over that same 14-day period.

Texas, for its part, reported a record 5,551 new cases, after setting a record just the day before and four new highs in the past week. Houston, with 987 new coronavirus cases, prompted concern from officials. Hospitalizations have more than doubled since Memorial Day, per the Houston Chronicle, and Texas has averaged over 3,000 new cases per day in the past week. That’s nearly double the number from a week earlier.

Florida eclipsed its previous record by well over 1,000 cases, reporting more than 5,500 new infections in a day. The state has surpassed its rolling-average new cases for straight 17 days.

Oklahoma, where the president held a rally this weekend, hit a new rolling average for the 12th consecutive day. That average is up 83 percent from mid-June.

All of this comes as the hardest-hit state in the union, New York, emerged on the other side of its shutdown into Stage 4 of reopening. According to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office, of the 54,000 or so people tested yesterday, only 1 percent testing positive.

Tellingly, New York and New jersey announced today that visitors from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington would all need to undergo a 14-day quarantine before they could move freely.

Seven states on Tuesday reported the highest number of hospitalizations since the pandemic began, according to the Washington Post. They included California, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has surpassed 9 million. That’s up over a million from the week before. The organization reported 473,797 deaths globally. The grim milestone comes after the U.S. eclipsed the 2 million-case mark late last week.

The U.S. is followed in total cases globally by Brazil (1,106,470), Russia (606,881), India (456,183), the UK (306,214) and Peru (257,447). The Americas continue to be a hot spot with Peru and Chile above 250,000 and the U.S. and Brazil numbers one and two worldwide.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, whose data has been widely used and tends to track higher than the CDC and WHO numbers, is reporting 9,343,448 total cases globally and 479,818 deaths in 2016 countries and territories.