Coronavirus: US only nation to report over 10 million cases
In a grim turn of events, the United States became the first nation where coronavirus cases have trumped the ten million mark; the tally stands at 10,288,480. The powerful country has so far lost 243,768 to the contagious disease. The US touched the sad milestone on the same day when the coronavirus tally crossed 50 million-mark globally. Across the world, 50,731,151 have been infected and 1,261,980 have died.
The first COVID-19 case was reported in Washington nearly 293 days ago, and the country has seen an uptick in the infections since then. In the past ten days, the US recorded nearly a million coronavirus cases, as per Reuters. For four times in the last seven days, the number of fresh cases trumped 100,000; on Saturday, 131,420 cases were registered.
To give a perspective, the latest seven-day daily average of cases is 105,600. This is more than the combined average of India and France, the worst affected nations in Asia and Europe respectively. Texas accounts for 10% of total US cases and became the first state to nestle one million infections on Saturday. With over 33,000 deaths, New York became the state to lose the most people.
Evidently, the third wave has come ahead of the festive season, with people pondering about visiting their loved ones to celebrate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had, in October, urged people to understand the transmission risk before hosting out-of-town guests. According to NYT, on Saturday, transmission in 44 states and Puerto Rico was more than 15 new cases daily for 100,000 people.
To recall, in late April, the US had crossed the one million mark, with the outbreak being concentrated in the New York and the West Coast areas. Just six weeks later, the country had touched the two million case mark. Subsequently, it took four weeks to reach the three million mark. The fourth and fifth million cases were added in less than three weeks.
By August-end, the number of daily cases fell, but it picked up the pace again in mid-October. On October 30, the country crossed the nine-million benchmark. In ten days or so, another grim milestone was touched. On the surge, Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an assistant professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, said, "We are in a terrifying place."
President-elect Joe Biden, who lashed out at outgoing President Donald Trump for his handling of the pandemic, said that his government will make controlling the outbreak its top priority. Reports said the Democrat will announce a 12-member task force, to be headed by former surgeon general Vivek Murthy and former FDA commissioner David Kessler, on Monday. The task force will prepare a blueprint.
