The United States reported a record high 69,000 new coronavirus infections last Friday, but we've now surpassed that record by a significant margin.
Over 77,200 new infections were recorded in the last 24 hours and that was accompanied by almost 1,000 deaths. Texas posted the highest number with over 15,000 infections.
via Reuters:
The loss of 969 lives was the biggest increase since June 10, with Florida, South Carolina and Texas all reporting their biggest one-day spikes on Thursday. [...]
The current tally of 77,217 cases surpasses the previous record set on Friday when cases rose by 69,070. In June, cases rose by an average of 28,000 a day, according to a Reuters tally. In July, they have risen by an average of 57,625 a day.
On Thursday, Texas reported over 15,000 new cases, according to a Reuters tally of county data, while Florida reported nearly 14,000 new cases and California almost 10,000.
Things are actually worse or soon will be than it currently appears because deaths are a lagging indicator. Most of the nearly 1,000 people who died yesterday were infected in June and those who were among the 77,217 just infected could die up to a month or longer from now. Not all of them will, of course, but a death rate of just 1 percent would mean an additional 770 deaths.
Deaths are also not the only concern. Infection has been associated with all manner of lingering health problems that are still poorly understood at this point.
You know, they say we need to be willing to sacrifice to keep the economy running, but there is not much of an economy that can run in parallel to tens of thousands of dead or sick people.
In some respects I personally feel more threatened by the virus now than I did in April. I don't know where the line is, but we must be approaching the point of completely losing control of the spread without a national lockdown. The bigger these state outbreaks become the more difficult it will be to prevent it from spreading to more states.