‘It’s dangerous NOT to be sending a clear message to Americans’: U.S. hits 120,000 coronavirus cases over July 4th Weekend — with surges in Florida, Arizona and Texas

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The U.S. has recorded at least 120,168 new coronavirus cases over the July 4th Weekend, up from 169,100 on Thursday evening, according to official figures collated by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

COVID-19, first identified in Wuhan, China in December, had infected 11,317,637 people globally and 2,852,807 in the U.S. as of Sunday. It had claimed 531,729 lives worldwide, and 129,718 in the U.S., John Hopkins reported.

‘It makes me angry. You know, I understand he has a tough job, but it is dangerous not to be sending a clear message to Americans.’

— Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, Texas, speaking to CNN’s ‘State of the Union’

New cases are up 42% in Florida over the past week, 32% in Arizona, 40% in Montana, 37% in the Virgin Islands, 33% in Idaho, 30% in South Carolina, 29% in Texas, 28% in Arizona, and up 21% in California over the same period, according to this tally by the Washington Post.

The rolling seven-day average of new cases was 48,361 Saturday, up from 11,740 one week ago, the paper added. Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, told CNN’s T, +0.60% “State of the Union” show on Sunday: “If we don’t change the trajectory, we are within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun.”

Citing comments by President Donald Trump that COVID-19 would go away, and the July 4th gathering at the White House with many guests who were not social distancing or wearing masks, Adler, a Democrat, said, “It makes me angry. You know, I understand he has a tough job, but it is dangerous not to be sending a clear message to Americans.”

New York has had the most deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S., followed by New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Thus far, New York has had the most deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. (32,157), followed by New Jersey (15,189), Massachusetts (8,172), Illinois (7,014), Pennsylvania (6,749), California (6,334) and Michigan (6,218). Texas has reported 2,607 deaths from the virus.

Florida reported 10,059 new cases Sunday after reporting 11,458 new cases Saturday, which was second only to the daily peak of 11,571 in New York last April. It confirmed nearly 200,111 cases, up from 190,052 cases the day before.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for three decades and one of the leading experts on pandemics in the U.S. for the last four decades, has said Americans and lawmakers need to reconsider some of their actions.

On Thursday, Fauci said the virus may be mutating to become more transmissible. “We don’t have a connection between whether an individual does worse with this or not. It just seems that the virus replicates better and may be more transmissible. But this is still at the stage of trying to confirm that.”

Fauci focused on three main failings by both the public and authorities: Many states have reopened too quickly, people are not abiding by rules of social distancing, and the authorities could do a better job at contact tracing to track people who’ve been in contact with those who test positive.

Florida reported 10,059 new cases Sunday after reporting 11,458 new cases Saturday.

While COVID-19’s progress has slowed in states such as New York, where most cases in the U.S. are still centered, confirmed coronavirus cases have risen in nearly 40 U.S. states, with some of the most populous states such as Florida, Texas and California a key cause for concern.

Florida has seen a rise in hospitalizations in recent days and, while most of those were among older people, an 11-year-old boy from Miami-Dade County died from complications from the disease, the youngest person in the state to die from COVID-19 and third child in the state to die from the disease.

The Dow Jones Industrial Index DJIA, +0.35% and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.45% were up Friday, after better-than-expected unemployment numbers amid a surge of coronavirus in states that have loosened restrictions.

How COVID-19 is transmitted

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