New highs in daily Covid-19 infections, deaths across US

LOS ANGELES • The number of new coronavirus cases and fatalities continue to mount across the United States, with Texas and Oklahoma recording new highs.

The Texas Department of State Health Services reported 10,791 new cases and 110 new fatalities on Wednesday, saying in a tweet that both numbers "are new highs" for the state. Oklahoma - where Governor Kevin Stitt announced that he had tested positive for the virus - recorded 1,075 new cases, a single-day record.

"I got tested yesterday for Covid-19 and the results came back positive," Mr Stitt, 47, said in a video conference call with reporters. "I feel fine, really, I mean you might say I am asymptomatic or just slightly kind of a little bit achy."

Alabama also hit a grim milestone, recording 47 deaths, the highest in a single day. Alabama's Republican Governor Kay Ivey on Wednesday reversed her position and ordered all residents to wear masks, starting yesterday.

The disease has also been spreading rapidly in other states, notably Florida, which has recorded nearly 302,000 cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic began.

California has also seen a surge in recent weeks, prompting officials to reimpose lockdowns. The state reported its second-highest single-day increase in cases and deaths on Wednesday, with 11,125 new cases and 140 additional deaths, according to the state's Department of Public Health.

"We are in an alarming and dangerous phase in this pandemic here in LA County," said Dr Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health director, as she announced 44 additional deaths from the virus on Wednesday and 2,758 new cases.

"These alarming trends reflect behaviours from three weeks ago," she added, saying that the county was seeing the highest rates of hospitalisations since the beginning of the pandemic.

Nationwide, more than 71,000 new cases were reported on Wednesday, the nation's highest-ever daily total, according to Worldometer. The death toll currently stands at more than 140,000 and over 3.6 million people infected.

A total of 28 states have registered record daily increases in cases this month, many of them more than once, and 11 states have reported a greater number of deaths for a single day than ever before.

An influential mortality model developed by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projected late on Tuesday that the US death toll from Covid-19 would surpass 224,000 by Nov 1, up 16,000 from a prior forecast. But it also said the number of lives lost could be reduced by 40,000 if nearly all Americans wore masks in public.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS