Global Coronavirus Deaths Near Half A Million As US Daily Cases Surge: Live Updates

Summary:

• Global COVID deaths top 475k
• Cases top 9.2 million
• US cases near 2.5 million
• Deaths top 120k
• 27 states see cases increasing
• Australia sees another cluster
• Beijing says latest cluster is contained
• China has done 90 million nucleic acid tests
• UK moving to relax restrictions
• WHO warns Africa testing capacity improving

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A pullback in risk assets on Wednesday has swerved the spotlight back to the burgeoning global coronavirus crisis, a resurgence in global cases driven primarily by the US, Latin America and a handful of Asian or Eurasian countries including India and Russia (and several of their neighbors).

Most alarmingly, the US is on track to seeing the average number of new infections reported daily eclipse the highs from the “peak” of the outbreak back in April, when New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut saw the number of patients hospitalized and in the ICU hit their peaks. While deaths have lagged amid evidence that the rising case counts in the US are being driven primarily by young people acting irresponsibly, in roughly a week, the US will eclipse the 50k cases per day mark, at which point a surge in deaths and more severe cases will be virtually inevitable.

At this point, the alarming surge in new cases seen along the sunbelt states from Florida to Arizona on to California is clearly being driven by loosening restrictions on the economy, as states that waited the longest to close down have also been among the first to reopen. At first, it looked like this strategy had been vindicated as Georgia appeared to have dodged the feared second wave. But the state has since seen its daily case counts move back into record territory: Arizona, California, Texas and Mississippi all reported record increases in new cases yesterday, along with other states.

A staggering 27 states are now seeing cases increase, according to the NY Times.

Per WaPo, 33 states and US territories have reported a higher rolling average than last week. But even as case numbers climb, the federal government is poised to turn off the taps for federal funding to boost testing in hard-hit states like Texas. We suppose that’s what Trump meant when he said he “wasn’t joking” about trying to slow down the testing.

As a team of analysts from Fundstrat put it: “The rise is across multiple states, and while testing is higher, the synchronized rise across states is the bigger driver. The trend in cases is not good, and at face value, should be alarming.”

But it’s not just the US and Brazil. Germany reported 712 new cases of COVID-19, an increase of more than 200 from the number reported yesterday as Germany struggles with an outbreak at a meatpacking plant, while Tokyo reports 55 infections, its highest daily tally since May 5.

Localized lockdowns have been adopted in Germany (in the area surrounding the meatpacking plant which also happens to be located in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia), and Israel as well as PM Benamin Netanyahu uses the lockdown and the pandemic response more broadly to try and protect his interests during his ongoing legal troubles.

As some EU members reopen their borders to intra-bloc tourists, Brussels is weighing whether to keep Americans out past July, when the bloc will begin to reopen its borders to countries where the virus isn’t widely spreading. The US clearly doesn’t meet this criteria, and President Trump showed Europe no similar consideration when he barred travelers from the Continent as well as Great Britain a few months back.

China’s policy of responding to every new outbreak with overwhelming force (while its propagandists work to blame it on the US and the West) has managed to successfully contain an other outbreak. The latest outbreak in Beijing has now been contained, Lei Haichao, head of Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said during a briefing on Wednesday. The virus spread very fast and a large number of cases emerged in a short period, Lei said. Beijing reported just seven additional local coronavirus infections for June 23, down from 13 the day before, per the NHC.

NHC officials told WaPo that they’ve conducted more than 90 million nucleic acid swab tests since the pandemic began.

Even in Australia, the state of Victoria saw 20 new cases in the past 24 hours and one man in his 80s died, bringing the national death toll to 103, weeks after the country reopened on the view that the outbreak had been successfully quashed.

As the UK moves to lift most of its lockdown restrictions by July 4, the WHO declared Wednesday that all African countries have now developed laboratory capacity to test for the coronavirus, according to Dr.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization’s director general, who celebrated the advance in testing capacity.

“The most recent one million cases of COVID-19 were reported in just one week,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual conference on COVID-19 vaccine development and access across the continent.

Though cases have picked up slightly in recent weeks, Africa has largely surprised health officials by avoiding the devastating outbreaks that many had feared.

Globally, the number of coronavirus cases topped 9.2 million, while the global death toll topped 475k. In the US, cases neared the 2.5 million mark, while deaths topped 120k.

As we reported last night, Texas Children’s Hospital began admitting adult patients, as hospitalizations have soared in Harris County in and around Houston. Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott urged Texans to stay inside to avoid spreading the virus, finally acknowledging that “the safest place for you is at your home,” he said Tuesday.