Record-high new cases of COVID-19 in the US set two days in a row: Washington Post. Rising death rates will follow shortly.

Coronavirus studies by Engin Akyurt via pixabay.com

Update: at 12:22 PM Eastern time, the Post reported that Florida had found 8,942 new infections yesterday– eclipsing the record of 5,551 set two days ago.

The Washington Post reported today, June 26:

Nationally, 39,327 new infections were reported by state health departments on Thursday, surpassing the previous record set a day earlier. Texas alone reported a record 5,996 new cases (along with a record high for coronavirus hospitalizations), and the state’s rolling average has jumped by 340 percent since Memorial Day.

Worldometer reported 40,184 new cases in the US for June 25.

The governor of Texas has closed bars and is reducing restaurant capacity, in a reversal of reopening plans set in motion over a month ago.  Florida is also announcing bar closures.  Nationally, daily new cases have doubled since June 2.  The age mix of new cases has changed; younger people are a larger percentage than when the pandemic struck four months ago.  LA’s mayor has asked people to stay home as much as possible and announced a near-doubling of test capacity to 13,700 tests per day.

California data showed 56% of positive tests were in patients 18-49 years old and less than 15% were over 65.  At the outset of the pandemic, over a quarter of positive tests were found in those over 65, and most deaths were also in this age group.

Centers for Disease Control head Robert Redfield announced that antibody studies reveal the true number of new cases is probably ten times the rate revealed by tests of antigen positivity, suggesting that as many as 20 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19.  Most have recovered, but according to worldometer, nearly 127,000 have died.  According to Johns Hopkins, there were 124,509 deaths total as of this morning.  New Jersey changed its criteria and has reported 1854 probable deaths based on a look back at nursing home data.

According to worldometer, California, Texas, and Florida all have recorded more than 5,000 cases daily, and Arizona has listed over 3,000 new cases.

Overall, new data are showing out of control transmission of coronavirus in the US; even as cases have dropped on the East Coast, they are skyrocketing in the South and West.  Despite claims by Republican congressmen that the George Floyd protests are responsible, there is no indication that this is true.  Rather, it appears that young people congregating without masks in places like bars is causing this increase.

There has been no well-coordinated federal response to this pandemic.  States and local governments have been forced to step up, and they have spent money that they don’t have on  mitigation.  Since states cannot borrow money, they will be forced to shut down essential services unless the federal government bails them out– which has not happened and is unlikely to happen until the end of July at the earliest.

The same Johns Hopkins site reports 490,632 worldwide deaths and 9,654,269 confirmed cases as of June 26.  The US leads the world by a large margin (2,435,814 cases), with Brazil (1,228,114), Russia (619,936), and India (490,401) following.  The pandemic is spreading throughout South America with deadly effect and destroying the already fragile economies of South America and Mexico.