California becomes 1st US state with over 6 lakh COVID-19 cases

A volunteer hands a child a backpack filled with school supplies in LA. The giveaway is being held as part of Adventist Health White Memorial hospital's series of COVID-19 community rescue programmes. Pic/AFP

California, the current epicentre of the Coronavirus pandemic in the US, has became the country's first state to have more than 6,00,000 confirmed cases, authorities said.

A report released by the California Department of Public Health on Friday showed an increase of 7,934 COVID-19 cases, which included 3,505 new infections in 24 hours and 4,429 from a lab-reporting backlog of previous days.

Public health officials also confirmed 188 more deaths in the daily report. So far, there have been 6,01,075 confirmed cases and 10,996 deaths in California since the start of the pandemic.'

The seven-day positivity rate is 6.5 per cent and the 14-day positivity rate is 6.2 per cent, according to the Department of Public Health. The positivity rate reflects how prevalent positive cases of the disease are, when compared to the number of tests being done.

Officials said that local health departments have recorded 27,919 positive cases in health care workers and 143 deaths statewide as of Thursday. The county's public health officials noted that there has been a 25 per cent reduction in daily hospitalisations in the last couple of weeks.

The seven-day average of daily hospitalisations in the county is 1,521, whereas in the week ending July 31, the figure was 2,026. "The lower number of daily COVID-19 hospitalisations is encouraging, however, we still have far too many people spreading this virus," said Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department.

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