California recorded its largest number of coronavirus infections in a single day on Tuesday, amid efforts to halt reopening statewide.
The state tallied 11,126 cases, the highest number since the pandemic began. The number of positive cases has increased 3.3% in the past seven days and 47.2% in the past 14 days, according to state data.
With testing throughout the state more readily available, an uptick in cases would be expected, but the positivity rate among test results has increased steadily to 7.3% over the last seven days. Hospitalizations have also hit a record high, according to state data.
In total, the state has reported 347,634 cases since the pandemic started and seen 7,227 deaths. In the past 24 hours, there have been 140 new coronavirus-related deaths.
These grim records come as Los Angeles and San Diego school districts, two of the state’s largest, made the decision to go online-only through the fall, and the virus ripped through California’s prison system, prompting the state to release up to 8,000 prisoners in an effort to curb the spread.
On Monday Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, ordered all bars to shut and all restaurants, movie theaters and museums to halt indoor operations. “It’s incumbent on all of us to recognize, soberly, that Covid-19 is not going away anytime soon,” he said in his press briefing.
“We were able to suppress the spread of this virus. We were able to knock down the growth of this at the beginning. We’re going to do that again,” Newsom said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Case numbers continue to climb around the US, which has so far recorded more than 3.4m cases and more than 137,000 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins. States including Florida and Texas have also recently set their own records for daily new infections.
