State Update: Daily Number of Coronavirus Cases Tops 50,000 for First Time, Internal Messages Reveal Crisis at Houston Hospitals, New York Gov. Cuomo Warns of Resurgence in Coronavirus Cases

July 1, 2020

  • The United States reported 52,789 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, the largest single-day total since the start of the pandemic. Across the country, states are casting aside plans for a gradual return to normalcy, with California, Michigan and New York City the latest to rethink some aspects of reopening. More than 800,000 new coronavirus cases were detected in the United States in June, many of them in Sun Belt states that were quick to reopen. At least 125,602 deaths have been reported since the start of the pandemic.
  • At Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston on Sunday, the medical staff ran out of both space for new coronavirus patients and a key drug needed to treat them. With no open beds at the public hospital, a dozen COVID-19 patients who were in need of intensive care were stuck in the emergency room, awaiting transfers to other Houston area hospitals. A day later, the top physician executive at the Houston Methodist hospital system wrote to staff members warning that its coronavirus caseload was surging: “It has become necessary to consider delaying more surgical services to create further capacity for COVID-19 patients,” Dr. Robert Phillips said in the note, an abrupt turn from three days earlier, when the hospital system sent a note to thousands of patients, inviting them to keep their surgical appointments.
  • The coronavirus outbreak across the U.S. is getting worse and could threaten New York’s recovery after stringent lockdowns across the state helped suppress the fast-spreading infection, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday. “We have to be careful. We have dark clouds on the horizon and we’ve made tremendous progress,” Cuomo said at a press briefing. “We’ve been through Hell and back, but this is not over and this can still rear its ugly head anywhere in this nation and in this state.”
  • The Arizona Department of Health reported nearly 4,900 new coronavirus cases and 88 new deaths on Wednesday, a record single-day jump in both grim markers ahead of Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to the state later in the day. The coronavirus has infected a total of 84,092 people and killed 1,720 people in Arizona so far. The state’s previous single-day high in the number of additional cases was 3,593 on June 23 ahead of President Donald Trump’s scheduled event in Phoenix. 


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