New daily COVID-19 cases in the US surpass 70,000 for 1st time
Washington DC, Jul 15 (efe-epa).- The United States broke its record of daily COVID-19 infections on Wednesday with 74,513 new cases, surpassing 70,000 for the first time and taking the total number of cases in the country worst hit by the pandemic to 3,490,735.
The death toll at 8 pm stood at 137,235 after having risen by 803 in the last 24 hours, according to the independent count of Johns Hopkins University.
The US continues to see a dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 infections, with more than 70,000 daily cases now, after having first surpassed 60,000 on July 7, 50,000 on July 1, and 40,000 on June 26, all in less than three weeks.
Although most of the new infections are now being recorded in Florida, Texas, and California, New York remains the hardest hit state in the US by the epidemic, with 404,006 confirmed cases and 32,427 deaths.
A total of 23,353 people have died from the disease in New York City alone.
New York City is followed by neighboring New Jersey, which has 15,634 deaths, Massachusetts with 8,368 and Illinois with 7,427.
Other US states with a large number of coronavirus deaths are California with 7,298, Pennsylvania with 6,957, Michigan with 6,330, Florida with 4,521 and Connecticut with 4,380.
California has the second largest number of infections after New York, with 351,560, Florida is third with 301,810 and Texas is fourth, with 298,808.
The provisional death count of 137,235 has already surpassed the lowest level of the initial White House estimates, which projected at best between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths from the epidemic.
US President Donald Trump lowered these estimates and expressed confidence that the final figure would more likely be between 50,000 to 60,000 deaths, although in his latest calculations he has already predicted as many as 110,000 deaths, a number that has also been surpassed.
For its part, the Institute of Health Metrics and Assessments at the University of Washington, whose models predicting the evolution of the epidemic are often referred to by the White House, estimates that the death toll in the US will reach 200,000 by October. EFE-EPA
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