Peter Wells
Ohio became the sixth state to reach the half-million coronavirus case milestone and bucked a trend among some of the most populous states in the US that on Tuesday reported daily infections that were slightly below recent highs.
Deaths in those states — California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio, ranked by population — were also down from recent highs and below the seven-day average in three of those states.
Here are the single-day tallies for those seven states on Tuesday:
— Ohio25,721 cases and 81 deaths
The health department said on its coronavirus dashboard that Tuesday’s update “includes a backlog of approximately 13,000 antigen test records” that stretched back to November 1. Authorities said the cases “have all been assigned to their respective onset dates, and will be displayed that way in any dashboards that use onset date”.
Discounting the “approximately 13,000” historical cases could leave Ohio with a new single-day record. The state’s previous single-day record was 11,885 on November 23. It also reported 17,065 cases on November 27, but this included a batch of infections from the previous day that were not tallied because it was the Thanksgiving holiday.
With 510,018 cases confirmed since the start of the pandemic, Ohio is the sixth state to reach the half-million milestone, ranking behind New York and ahead of Georgia.
— California23,272 cases and 112 deaths
The state reported a record 30,075 cases on Sunday, while the positivity rate has averaged 8.4 per cent over the past fortnight, which is the highest since late April.
Over the past week, California has averaged 119 deaths a day, although the 209 fatalities reported on Saturday was its second-biggest one-day jump in fatalities since the start of the pandemic.
Medical team staffer Lilly Castro covers a patient with a gown in the Covid-19 intensive care unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas
— Texas15,103 cases and 181 deaths
This is the second-biggest one-day jump in new cases on record, ranking behind the 15,182 infections reported on December 1. In addition to these, authorities revealed a further 415 historical infections, although these are excluded from the daily tally.
Last Friday, the state reported 255 fatalities, the biggest one-day increase since late August.
— Pennsylvania10,170 cases and 169 deaths
The state reported a record 12,884 cases on Saturday, and has averaged about 140 deaths a day over the past week.
— New York9,335 cases and 74 deaths
On Friday last week, the state reported 11,271 cases, the second-biggest single-day increase since the start of the pandemic and just 300 infections shy of its record from April 15. Over the past week, New York has averaged 70 fatalities a day.
— Florida7,985 cases and 98 deaths
Florida reported 10,656 infections on Thursday last week for the biggest one-day increase since late July, factoring out times when multiple days’ worth of data were delivered in one hit. The state has averaged about 102 deaths a day over the past week.
— Illinois7,910 cases and 145 deaths
Like most Midwest states, Illinois is experiencing a declining trend in cases, hospitalisations and even fatalities. The latest figures are below its averages over the past week of 9,332 cases, and about 176 deaths, a day.
