California tops 1 million coronavirus cases, second state following Texas

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California on Thursday became the second state in the U.S. to top 1 million total coronavirus cases, following Texas, per data from Johns Hopkins University.

Texas and California alone comprise roughly 20% of the nation’s total case count exceeding 10 million infections.

Gov. Gavin Newsom addressed the rising positivity rate, cases and hospitalizations in a briefing earlier this week.

“Obviously it’s sobering, these numbers but again the total capacity that we built out, the ability to test being substantially greater than it was just even a few weeks ago, let alone a few months ago, and the ample inventory of over 500 million masks and other related PPE is significant,” Newsom said at a briefing – before California hit the 1 million mark.

The state's 14-day positivity rate was 3.9%, up from 2.5% on October 19.

State data show California’s daily case counts had been on the rise since late September, following a turbulent time in July when daily infections topped 12,000 on multiple occasions.

In recent days, the state has been logging between 6,000 to over 7,600 cases. Data from Johns Hopkins University reported 995,575 confirmed cases by Thursday afternoon as the state approached toward the 1-million mark. Meanwhile, Texas became the first state to hit the grim milestone on Wednesday.

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On another note, Los Angeles County alone contributed at least one-third of infections to the 1-million total. Each day from Nov. 7 to Nov. 10, state data shows over 2,000 new cases.

“These numbers are demonstrating real and alarming increases, and the next two weeks will be crucial,” Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer said during a briefing Monday.

“In the last three plus weeks we’ve started to see not just the average number of people testing positive go up, but also the positivity rate go up,” Newsom said.

The seven-day average of daily tests was 143,711, as of the briefing, and Newsom said the figure was approaching 200,000; “a record number of tests.” A new state lab, PerkinElmer, just getting up and running, will ramp up to add another 150,000 daily tests at its peak, increasing testing capacity, though at least 40,000 tests have been run so far, Newsom said.

Newsom also noted increasing hospitalizations, dating several weeks back. Over a 14-day period, the trendline increased over 28%, the governor noted, but said COVID-19 patients represent 4% of total health care capacity.

While the number of patients needing intensive care has also risen, Newsom noted over 20,000 available ventilators.

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Fox News' Louis Casiano and Madeline Farber contributed to this report.

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