October Surge: Oct 21, 2020
United States
At least 929 new coronavirus deaths and 60,598 new cases were reported in the United States on Oct. 20. Over the past week, there have been an average of 60,160 cases per day, an increase of 36 percent from the average two weeks earlier. As of Wednesday morning, more than 8,316,000 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 220,900 have died, according to a New York Times database.
National Numbers
Per NPR, on Friday Oct 16, 2020, U.S. cases surged higher than they had since late July, hitting nearly 70,000 in one day. Last week, 17 states — primarily in the Midwest and Great Plains — posted new daily records, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
It is believed the reasons propelling the surge in growth in new cases are related to more people congregating indoors, school reopenings and students returning to college campuses, and general fatigue around the pandemic causing people to let their guards down. T
The Midwest plays a major role in the rising numbers, with 57% growth in daily new infections over the past two weeks. That region (defined as 12 states by the U.S. census) accounted for more than a third of all new cases in the U.S. last week, according to NPR's analysis of CDC data.
Illinois and Wisconsin each added nearly 20,000 new cases in the past seven days, rivaling much larger states like California.
Hospitalizations more than doubled in the past two weeks in Wisconsin, and the state stood up a field hospital to make room for the growing number of patients.
While the overall numbers in North and South Dakota are lower than those of neighboring states, their rate of new infections per capita continues to eclipse all other states — and even what Arizona recorded during its devastating summer surge.
The outbreak has increasingly fanned out to Western states, too.Montana, Wyoming and Utah have high per capita rates of new infections on par with the Midwest, and even states that have successfully kept the virus in check for months are now seeing a spike.
In New Mexico, daily new infections more than doubled over the past two weeks and are now at the highest levels since the pandemic began.
The South, which includes Florida and Texas, accounts for close to 40% of total cases in the past week, with cases rising quickly in some states like Tennessee and Mississippi. While the Northeast has a much smaller share of cases compared to other regions, the average case count doubled over the past month.
A number of European countries are experiencing a resurgence in the number of Covid cases. A lot of this has been attributed to the relaxation of the lock-down and to colder temperatures, which has put more people indoors, where the transmission rates are much higher.
Germany - Tues, Oct 13 -> 5,132 new infections up from 2,639 a week earlier
France - Oct. 7 to Oct 14 -> 120,000 new cases from the past week
Netherlands - Oct. 7 to Oct 14 -> 22,000 new cases
Learn more about this development HERE.