US hospitalisation numbers continue to mount, defying weekend lag
Peter Wells in New York and Emma Boyde in Hong Kong
The number of people being hospitalised in the US due to Covid-19 continued to rise, defying the usual lag in reporting weekend numbers on a Monday, suggesting a worrying burden on healthcare facilities in some of the worst-hit states.
“As expected, most numbers were lower over the last 2 days. Current hospitalizations, however, do not display the same weekend effect. There are almost 54k COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the US. The 7-day average for daily deaths increased modestly,” Covid Tracking Project said on Twitter.
The US reported fewer than 60,000 new coronavirus cases for the first time in four days on Monday, while the increase in deaths was the smallest in a week.
A further 58,357 people tested positive for the disease over the past 24 hours, according to Covid Tracking Project data, down from 60,978 on Sunday and nearly 8,300 short of a record 66,645 on July 10.
Figures on Monday tend to be lower due to a slowdown in reporting over the weekend.
Florida (12,624) reported the biggest jump for the day, with its increase ranking second to its record 15,300 leap on Sunday. The rise meant that Florida broke New York’s seven-day average record for cases per million people, Covid Tracking Project said on Twitter.
Other populous hot spots like California (8,358) and Texas (5,655) saw increases that were comfortably down from recent records.
Among the 13 US states to report one-day increases of more than 1,000, Tennessee (3,314), Kansas (1,447) and Washington (1,438) reported record jumps.
A further 327 people in the US died from coronavirus over the past day, the smallest increase since July 6.