Health and Healthcare

Texas Become Second State With Over 900,000 Cases

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: October 25, 2020 7:10 am

Texas became only the second state to have over 900,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases as its total reached 906,033. That places it just behind California which has 906,664. At its current rate of growth, Texas could quickly pass California as the state with the most cases.

Fatal cases in Texas number 17,998 compared to California’s 17,345. Texas cases have been concentrated in Harris County, home to Houston, which has posted 158,379 confirmed cases and 2,775 fatal ones. Cases in California have been highest in Los Angeles County with 294,287 confirmed cases and 6,974 deaths. Harris County is the third-largest county in America based on population at 4,698,619. Los Angeles County is the largest at 10,105,518.

In Florida, which is third in confirmed cases has 776,251, and New York, in fourth place, has 498,568. 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 33,049, about 15% of the national total.

U.S. confirmed cases reached 8,664,187. U.S. deaths 228,019. 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.

According to the Bing COVID-19 Tracker, global confirmed cases of the disease reached 42,650,540 today, up by 436,164 from the day before. Global confirmed cases often have risen by over 350,000 a day recently. This is above the sustained figure for any period since the spread of COVID-19 began.

Fatal COVID-19 cases have reached 1,150,241, after a one-day gain of 5,922.

Currently ranked second in the world based on confirmed COVID-19 cases, India has 7,866,740. The coronavirus death count there stands at 118,593. 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 5,381,224. New cases recently have risen at a rate of over 20,000 a day. Its COVID-19 deaths number is 156,926. 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 1,513,877 cases, and fatal cases there number 26,050. 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 16,710 yesterday, among the highest one-day counts in Russia since the pandemic began.

Also on the list of nations with over one million confirmed cases, Argentina reached 1,081,336, and coronavirus deaths there number 28,613. Meanwhile, Spain has 1,046,132. It has 34,752 fatal cases. France recently joined the list of countries with over a million confirmed cases, as it currently has 1,086,497 and 34,645 coronavirus deaths. Finally, Columbia has 1,007,711 deaths and 30,000 fatal cases.