U.S. tops 6 million coronavirus cases
The United States on Monday topped 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has reported a million more coronavirus cases and about 21,000 more deaths in just the past three weeks.
The grim milestone continues a trend that sees the U.S. reporting far more confirmed cases and higher numbers of coronavirus-related deaths than any other country in the world. Brazil and India both have more than 3.5 million cases and Russia has nearly 1 million, though critics have cast doubt on the accuracy of some nation's official tallies.
The total number of confirmed cases worldwide is more than 25 million, meaning the U.S. accounts for about 24% of all cases around the globe despite only having around 4% of the world's population.
More than 183,000 people in the U.S. have died as a result of COVID-19. A recent projection model by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation says the total number of U.S. deaths from the virus could reach 317,000 by December.
California has reported the most cases in the nation with more than 699,000 as of Sunday night. Florida has reported over 621,00 cases while New York has tallied more than 434,000.
Black, Indigenous and Latinx communities have been hit hardest by the coronavirus. Black Americans, according to the CDC, are 2.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to their White counterparts.
Differing depictions of how the pandemic has played out have become a big issue in the presidential campaign. The Republican National Convention last week tried to make the case that President Trump acted aggressively to deal with the outbreak. But Mr. Trump has been criticized for making false and misleading statements and downplaying the threat from the virus. On Sunday, Twitter removed a tweet shared by Mr. Trump that contained false information about coronavirus statistics from the CDC, with the company saying it violated its rules.
Mr. Trump has pushed for businesses and schools to reopen as soon as possible, sometimes contradicting his own panel of health experts. By contrast, Joe Biden said that, if elected, he would shut the U.S. down if that's what scientists recommended.
"I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives, because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus," Biden said last week.