DALLAS (NewsNation Now) — America saw its highest day of COVID-19 case counts on Thursday since the pandemic began. It’s the third day in a row the U.S. had more than a thousand deaths. While no region is being spared, several states are seeing serious spikes.
Here is NewsNation’s latest breakdown of coronavirus cases:
Just north of 121,000 cases and 1,200 deaths—those nationwide numbers coming in on Thursday alone from Johns Hopkins University. If you crunch the numbers, that’s about 84 new cases per minute and 50 deaths per hour. Illinois, Florida, Michigan, California and Texas are all seeing COVID on the rise.
Mayor of El Paso Dee Margo addressed the city following its surge—with hospitals at their breaking point. Governor Greg Abbott has issued emergency resources to Texas. In a press conference, Dee said, “The Texas Department of Emergency Management, HHS and DOD has provided us with over 1,400 nurses, technicians and respiratory therapists.”
Also making Texas headlines is the Amarillo family who lost their 5-year-old daughter to COVID-19. She had been diagnosed only 15 hours before her death.
In Illinois, officials asking residents to give deep thought into how they want to celebrate this holiday season. Dr. Ngoi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, warned of the risks associated with travel and entertaining.
“Everyone should get in the habit of getting tested, whether they have symptoms or not,” said Ezike. “With this amount of disease in our community, it’s hard to think that you could go anywhere and not potentially be exposed.”
In California, health experts are in talks to decide whether a mandatory quarantine for travelers should be implemented in certain counties or even statewide.
And in Michigan, the chief medical executive said the state was at its tipping point. Some colleges have already told students to stay home this winter. Doctors also alerted patients that COVID care will overwhelm hospital systems.
“Our ability to care for our community and provide services like surgery, cancer screenings and radiology studies is going to be limited,” said Dr. Joshua Kooistra, an emergency medicine physician in Michigan.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo told airline passengers they should not travel to New York if they do not have proof of a negative test upon landing.
And Florida added more than 5,000 new cases on Friday alone. All of these updates as the world still awaits an approved vaccine.
