Health and Healthcare

Bing COVID-19 Tracker: Daily U.S. Cases Top 100,000 For First Time

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: October 24, 2020 2:54 pm

According to the Bing COVID-19 Tracker, new cases in the U.S. rose by 105,411 during the last day, the first day since the start of the pandemic that the American number has topped 100,000. Several experts have warned confirmed case counts could rise into the six digits. Two months ago, the typical daily increase hovered around 30,000.

The 105,411 takes the total U.S. confirmed cases to 8,603,771. In the last day, U.S. deaths rose 1,085 to 227,399. In a new article in “Nature Medicine”, the IHME COVID-19 Forecasting Team said that deaths could reach 511,373 by 28 February 2021. If mask-wearing rates rise from current nationwide levels to use by 100% of the population, the number could be reduced by as much as 129,574.

U.S. confirmed cases are concentrated in the largest states by population. California has 902,325 and Texas has 898,708. At the current rate of increase, Texas may overcome California’s count in a matter of days and become the top state in America based on the number of confirmed cases.

In Florida, there are 776,251 cases, and New York has 496,510. Yet, some of the states where COVID-19 is growing fastest have small populations, most notably North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin. New York State continues to have the largest number of coronavirus deaths by far at 33,038, about 15% of the national total.

Currently ranked second in the world based on confirmed COVID-19 cases, India has 7,862,483. The coronavirus death count there stands at 118,535.  Health care experts say that because of the size of the nation geographically, and its relatively primitive health care systems, more than 60 million people actually have been infected, which is about eight times the official number. The Indian Council of Medical Research puts the figure as high as 63 million.

Brazil has a confirmed case count of 5,356,035. New cases recently have risen at a rate of over 20,000 a day. Its COVID-19 deaths number is 156,529. As with India, Brazil’s figures are too low. It is nearly impossible to count cases in the nation’s interior. In the poorest parts of the largest cities, packed with impoverished people, the disease also is difficult to track.

Russia has 1,497,167 cases, and fatal cases there number 25,821. Most experts say the death count is far too low to be real. It may be that the government has kept counts down to make it appear it has the pandemic under control. Confirmed cases rose by 16,521 yesterday, among the highest one-day counts in Russia since the pandemic began.

Argentina became the fifth nation to post a total of a million confirmed cases or more. The figure for the country has hit 1,069,368, and coronavirus deaths there number 28,338. Meanwhile, Spain has become the sixth nation with more than a million confirmed cases, with 1,046,132. It has 34,752 fatal cases.

France became the 7th nation with confirmed cases over one million. Its figure reached 1,041,075, up 42,032. Fatal cases reached 34,508.