On Thursday, the United States broke its record for most new coronavirus cases reported in one day, as concerns about a second wave of the pandemic continue to rise.
As numbers rise in the south, 40,401 new cases were reported Thursday, according to a Johns Hopkins database, beating the previous record number in April of more than 3,000.
Missouri, Nevada, Alabama and Texas posted record daily highs, according to counts from The Washington Post.
The Lone Star State, in particular, reported 5,996 new cases on Thursday, according to the Post, overshadowing the record it set on Wednesday. According to the Post, the state’s moving average, 4,581, was not only a record, but 340 percent higher than on Memorial Day.
The rapid increase in cases in Texas prompted Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to announce a reopening hiatus Thursday when hospitals began to fill up, particularly in the hardest hit metropolitan areas.
These numbers come when CDC Director Robert Redfield said Thursday that the number of Americans actually infected with the virus could be 10 times higher than is actually reported.
“This virus causes so much asymptomatic infection,” said Redfield. “We probably recognized about 10 percent of the outbreak.”
“This outbreak is not over. This pandemic is not over. The most powerful tool we have, a powerful weapon, is social distancing,” added Redfield. “We have a responsibility to practice social mitigation strategies to protect the vulnerable, to protect the elderly.”
While the numbers are increasing in some states, there are some areas that show a decrease in the number of cases after being hit hard at the beginning of the spread.
Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo (D) said Thursday that his state was treating fewer than 1,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, the first time since mid-March that the number had dropped to less than 1,000.
Hospitalizations are declining in Connecticut, Washington, DC, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, too.
According to Johns Hopkins data, more than 2.4 million people in the US tested positive for COVID-19.
.
