In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well underway.
The number of people known to have been infected with the coronavirus in the United States passed four million on Thursday, another grim milestone in a pandemic full of them, according to a New York Times database.
And it’s not just cases that are rising. The numbers of hospitalizations and deaths reported in the U.S. each day have also been increasing.
Public health experts have warned that the actual number of people infected by the virus is certainly far higher than the number of reported cases, and could be up to 13 times as high in some regions.
Cases are trending upward in 39 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and are decreasing in only two. In the past week, cases have risen most quickly, relative to population, in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Texas has added more than 10,000 cases each day, on average.
deaths, normalized by population, selected states pic.twitter.com/zmdeiCbzfI— Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) July 23, 2020
AP:
Florida reached a new milestone Thursday with 173 reported coronavirus deaths and pushed the total number of cases in the state past 389,000, the state health department reported.
There were 10,249 new coronavirus cases reported Thursday. The latest death count brings the seven-day average to about 121 deaths per day in Florida.
The previous high death toll reported in a single day was 156 on July 16.
The numbers show that hard-hit Miami-Dade County reported 2,732 of the new cases and 12 deaths. Miami-Dade has more than 95,000 coronavirus cases and more than 1,300 deaths, according to the health department.
More than 3.2 million people have been tested for coronavirus in Florida. The seven-day average for positive tests in Florida stood at more than 18% on Wednesday.Houston Chronicle:
Texas set a grim new one-day record for increases in COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday, evidenced in part by such occurrences as Hidalgo County hospitals being forced to store bodies in refrigerated trucks, according to Reuters.
Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez has issued a call for new stay-at-home orders for all residents starting Wednesday.
"We've got to lasso this virus, this stallion, bring the numbers back down and get control of this thing, " Cortez zaid. "Because our hospitals---they're war zones, they are really struggling now."
According to Texas Health and Human Services, Texas reported 217 deaths and 10,893 COVID-19 hospitalizations. Hidalgo County has reportedly seen cases climb by 60 percent in the last week, with deaths now doubling more than 360.
The government reported on Thursday that more than 1.4 million workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week, the first time that the weekly tally has risen in more than three months.
The upturn, from about 1.3 million in the two preceding weeks, comes just days before an extra $600-a-week jobless benefit is set to expire.
An additional 975,000 claims were filed last week by freelancers, part-time workers and others who do not qualify for regular state jobless aid but are eligible for benefits under an emergency federal program, the Labor Department said. Unlike the state figures, that number is not seasonally adjusted.
“At this stage, you’re seeing all the wrong elements for recovery,” said Gregory Daco, the chief United States economist at Oxford Economics. “A deteriorating health situation, a weakening labor market and a softening path for demand.”
