The United States will become the first and only country in the world to exceed one million confirmed cases of COVID-19, perhaps as early as April 27. It became the first country to hit and exceed 500,000 COVID-19 cases on April 11.
The U.S. had 960,896 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 54,265 deaths from this disease, as of 2:27 pm Sunday (06:27 GMT) in Hong Kong, based on data from real-time data website, Worldometer. It accounted for 33% of total global cases amounting to 2,922,063 and 27% of total world deaths of 203,307. Spain and Italy are the world's second and third most infected countries.
The U.S. reported 35,419 more cases on Saturday compared to Friday and should a similar number be reported for Sunday versus Saturday, total U.S. cases will spike to some 995,000. The one million mark might be reached as early as Monday, April 27.
The three hardest hit U.S. states are New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts (all in the eastern part of the country), which together account for 47% of all U.S. COVID-19 cases as of Sunday.
New York is reeling from 288,313 cases and 21,908 deaths; New Jersey has to contend with 105,523 cases and 5,863 deaths while Massachusetts is coping with 53,348 cases and 2,730 deaths.
Within a 24-hour span on April 10 and 11, the U.S. saw its confirmed cases from COVID-19 hit and exceed 500,000 while reporting more than 2,000 deaths, which is its largest daily death toll since the first U.S. death was reported on February 29. And on the morning of April 11, the U.S. moved past Italy in the total number of deaths caused by COVID-19.
The U.S. had 502,876 confirmed cases and 18,747 deaths as of 05:15 GMT, April 10 (or 1:15 am Saturday, Eastern Time), according to Worldometer. It accounted for 30% of the world's total confirmed cases of 1,699,676 and 18% of total world deaths at 102,734.
Italy was then the world leader in deaths at 18,849, which was only 101 deaths ahead of the U.S. Data from Johns Hopkins University show 2,108 people died in the U.S.in the past 24 hours.
The U.S. continues to suffer these horrific losses due to President Donald Trump's ineptitude, his bungling the federal response to the pandemic, and his denying its severity early on. Trump has downplayed the severity of this pandemic in all his public statements since the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was confirmed on January 21.
As a result of his politicizing the pandemic to not damage his re-election bid in November, the U.S. response to the crisis has been confused and disorganized. Thousands of lives have been lost.
American medical experts regret the lost month from January to February when the U.S. should have begun conducting extensive coronavirus testing but couldn't because of Trump's opposition and his false claim the U.S. has such a large number of test kits that anyone that wanted to get tested could get tested. Until today, health experts say this isn't true.
