Washington (efe-epa).- The United States surpassed 2.5 million coronavirus cases on Saturday, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s independent tracker, as the world’s worst-hit country struggles to contain the virus that has killed 125,480 in several states.
The total number of cases in the country reached 2,505,593 after 43,536 new patients tested positive for the disease in the last 24 hours from Friday evening. Some 502 people also died of the disease within the same period.
On Friday, the US had set a new daily record of Covid-19 infections, with 45,330 fresh cases, which has been attributed to the disease surging in the southern and western states of the country such as Florida, Texas, California, and Texas.
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However, New York continues to be the worst-affected state with 391,923 confirmed cases and 31,368 deaths, a toll which is only surpassed by three countries: Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Italy.
New York City alone has witnessed 22,442 deaths, followed by New Jersey with 14,948 deaths, Massachusetts with 8,040 deaths, and Illinois with 6,873 fatalities.
Other states to report a large number of deaths include Pennsylvania (6,579), Michigan (6,153), California (5,869), and Connecticut (4,311).
In terms of infections, California is the second most-affected state in the country after New York, reporting 207,085 cases.
The provisional death toll, 125,480, has already exceeded the lower part of White House’s initial projections, which had predicted between 100,000-240,000 deaths due to the pandemic in the “best” case scenario.
Later President Donald Trump revised these estimates down to 50,000-60,000 deaths, although in his final projections he predicted 110,000 deaths.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington – whose projection models for the pandemic’s evolution have often been used by White House – estimates that the US death toll would cross 180,000 by the start of October. EFE-EPA
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Photo and text: Courtesy of EFE