(Reuters) – The death toll in the United States from COVID-19 fell 16 to about 7,200 last week, the first drop in deaths after 4 weeks of increases, according to a Reuters account of state and county reports.
The country registered more than 376,000 new COVID-19 instances for the week ending August 9, an average of approximately 53,000 consistent with the day. New instances have now declined for 3 consecutive weeks, the United States still accounts for a quarter of the world’s total 20 million instances.
The fall of new instances last week is largely due to recent hot spots. For example, new instances in Arizona fell more than 48% last week, and on August 9, the state reported fewer than 1,000 instances for the first time since June 29.
The community rate in Florida, California and Tennessee remained high, however, they all reported fewer cases than last week, according to Reuters’ count.
(Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in a browser for an interactive Reuters)
Hawaii had kept the virus at bay for most of the summer, but new cases doubled last week to more than 1,200. On August 6, Hawaii’s governor, David Ige, said he would reinstate inter-island restrictions that require others to be quarantined for 14 days.
In South Dakota, new cases are increasing for the third week in a row. More than 100,000 motorcycle enthusiasts are expected to come from across the country to attend an annual rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, which began on August 7.
Nationally, the percentage of all tests that tested positive for the new coronavirus remained solid at 8%, according to the knowledge of the COVID Monitoring Project, a volunteer-led effort to track the epidemic. Mississippi and Texas had positive rates in the country at 21%.
Only 15 states have reported a positive rate below 5%, which is the threshold that the World Health Organization considers to be fear because it suggests that there are more instances in the network that have yet to be discovered.
(Chart: Tracking the new coronavirus in the United States – tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T) (Chart: Global Tracker with Interactive Country by Country – tmsnrt.rs/2WZPuOh)
The Chris Canipe chart in Kansas City, Missouri; Edited through Tiffany Wu
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