COVID-19 scare: US crosses grim mark of 40 mn cases, 316% increase from last Labor Day

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Washington: The US crossed the grim milestone of 40 million COVID-19 cases on Monday (September 6), according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Daily COVID-19 cases in the US have increased more than four times that what the country witnessed on Labor Day last year, or a 316 per cent spike, a media report said.

Daily COVID-19 -related deaths are twice as high, Xinhua news agency quoted the USA Today report as saying on Monday (September 6) which cited data from the Johns Hopkins University.

Hospitalisations are also up by 158 per cent compared to Labor Day weekend a year ago, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Service.

According to the USA Today report, some hospitals in the country are getting so crowded with Covid-19 patients that physicians may soon be compelled to make life-or-death decisions on who gets an ICU bed.

"Blame the highly contagious Delta variant and a swath of Americans refusing easily accessible vaccines that most of the developing world is furiously scrambling to obtain," it said.

US COVID-19 caseload reached 10 million on November 9, 2020, crossed 20 million on January 1, 2021, and exceeded 30 million on March 24.

California topped the state-level caseload list, with 4,421,247 cases, while Texas came in second with 3,706,980 infections, followed by Florida (3,352,451), New York (2,304,955), and Illinois (1,538,324).

Other states with over 1 million cases include Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee, Michigan and Arizona, according to the University`s tally.

The US remains the worst-hit nation by the pandemic, with the world`s most cases and deaths, making up more than 18 per cent of the global caseload and nearly 14 per cent of the global deaths.

US COVID-19 case count rose to 40,003,101, with a total of 648,935 deaths as of Monday afternoon, showed the data, Xinhua news agency reported.