According to the Bing COVID-19 Tracker, the number of global cases has reached 11,797,213, after surging 217,376 in the past day. On most days of the past week, the number has been higher by 100,000.

Evidence is emerging that the disease could spread in a way that would make it more difficult to control. A number of scientists claim that it can be airborne. Dr. Benedetta Alleganzi, World Health Organization Technical Lead for Infection Prevention and Control, said:

We acknowledge that there is emerging evidence in this field, as in all other fields regarding the Covid-19 virus and pandemic and therefore we believe that we have to be open to this evidence and understand its implications regarding the modes of transmission and also regarding the precautions that need to be taken.

The focus of the spread moved away from Europe two months ago. As little as three weeks ago, it appeared that the United States would drop off the list of nations with rapidly rising confirmed cases. The large hotspots had moved to Russia, India, Brazil, Peru and Chile, where total confirmed cases soared. Brazil has been affected the most among these countries. Confirmed cases in the South American nation rose by 48,584 to 1,674,655. This makes it by far the hardest country after the United States. COVID-19 deaths in Brazil reached 66,868, a one-day gain of 1,312.

However, the U.S. total recently has added as much as any other nation to the large global surge, and America has become a major hotspot again. The confirmed cases count there has significantly worsened during the past several days, since the disease moved from the battered Northeast and Michigan and Illinois to states in the south and west.

Active cases worldwide are up to 4,838,239, and they are 41% of the total of global confirmed cases. The recovered case count is 6,415,379, a jump of 145,519. The positive spread between the numbers of recovered cases and active cases worldwide has shown improvement. It has moved above 1.4 million, one of the few good signs as the pandemic’s spread continues.

Global fatal cases have hit 543,595, after surging by 6,781. At the current pace, the figure still could pass 600,000 by late July.

As noted, the acceleration of the spread of the disease worldwide largely is because of an explosion of confirmed cases in America. The increase in confirmed cases there has been by more than 40,000 each day over the past week, and on three days it topped 50,000. Today, confirmed cases in America were at 3,048,072, or 55,722 higher. Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the increase could soon top 100,000 per day.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) commented that the actual U.S. case figure may be above 20 million and many of these people have no symptoms. The official U.S. confirmed case count is 26% of the world’s total.

Several large states are responsible for the U.S. swell in confirmed cases, including the three largest by population: California, Texas and Florida. These three states have about 26% of the total U.S. population. Increases are not isolated to these states though. The numbers of confirmed cases are also rising quickly in Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Nevada, Kansas, Tennessee and Oklahoma. There is a worry that the extent of the very widespread number of new cases geographically could trigger another sharp rise in states hit early, which include New York, New Jersey and Michigan.

Active U.S. COVID-19 cases number 1,996,452, and recovered cases have reached 918,298, after adding 17,669. It remains a bad sign that the active case count is so much higher than recovered ones. American coronavirus fatalities have hit 133,322, up by 923. They are on a pace to top 140,000 by the end of July.

One theory suggests that American deaths will increase in the coming weeks as confirmed cases have risen sharply. There can be a lag of as much as two weeks between when a person becomes infected and when serious symptoms arise. Moreover, the number of asymptomatic cases in America may be well into the millions. That means much of the spread is hard to track.

However, people with new confirmed cases are an average of 15 years younger than several months ago. This largely is because of the ages of people infected in the south recently. Younger people are less likely to die from the disease than those over 65.

New York State Confirmed Cases Above 400,000

New York State is the hardest hit by far. It has 402,338 confirmed cases. That number rose by 4,689 since yesterday. Coronavirus deaths total 32,219.

By comparison, the second hardest hit state, California, has total confirmed cases of 277,931, which is up by 6,247. Fatalities there currently number 6,452.

New York’s totals are due to a huge number of confirmed cases and deaths, as new cases rose over 10,000 on some days between late March and early April. Fatal cases topped 7,000 some days in early April.

The increases in New York’s confirmed case and death counts have slowed considerably in the past several weeks.

Russia’s Cases Top 700,000

Russia is the fourth hardest hit nation in the world with 700,792 confirmed cases, or 6,562 more in the past day. It trails the United States (up by 55,722 to 3,048,072), Brazil (up by 48,584 to 1,674,655) and India (up 23,654 to 745,390).

Fatal cases in Russia are well below the other three countries at 10,667. The U.S. figure is 133,322, while in Brazil and India they are 66,868 and 20,683, respectively.

One theory for Russia’s comparatively low death figure is that the actual numbers are much higher than those announced by the government, as President Vladimir Putin controls the figures released each day.

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