Health and Healthcare

Texas Becomes First State To Top One Million COVID-19 Cases

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: November 7, 2020 6:03 am

Texas became the first state to top one million confirmed cases as the latest tally reached 1,003,056, up 9,960 in the last day, according to Microsoft’s Bing COVID-19 Tracker. It is part of a national surge that took confirmed cases to 9,830,895, up by 131,473. Daily cases in the United States have started to routinely rise by over 100,000.

Texas has a fatal case count of 19,125, which rose by 125. Nationwide, fatal cases reached 239,354, higher by 838. Daily deaths across the entire county have begun to rise above 1,000 a day in the last week.

The pace that Texas took to one million confirmed cases quickened considerably recently. In late September and early October, most days cases rose by between 3,000 and 5,000. The figure has been over 7,000 most days since the start of November. The road to one million was also driven by a sharp increase in cases in July and August when the disease spread rapidly through the western and southern portions of the county, after tearing through the northeast in March, April, and May.

California, the state with the second most confirmed cases will become the second state to rise above the one million level soon. Its confirmed case count is 967,597, which rose 6,713. Fatal cases in the most populous state stand at 17,939, up 73.

The state with the third-largest number of confirmed cases is Florida at 832,625, up 5,245. Fatal cases stand at 17,224, up by 54. New York State is fourth with confirmed cases at 526,767, up by 3,208. Deaths in the state are 33,267, up by 20. New York has the largest death figure by far. The state was hit extremely hard early in the spread of COVID-19, in particular as New York City and the areas around it were battered by several weeks of quickly rising deaths and cases in March and April.

State figures have been driven in large part, by confirmed case and fatal case numbers in America’s largest counties. Texas is no exception. Harris County, home to Houston, the largest city in Texas, has posted 165,967 confirmed cases, up 715. Fatal cases in the county are 2,854, up by 3. Tarrant County, home to Dallas and Fort Worth, currently has 72,118 confirmed cases, up 952, and 871 deaths, up by 10 in the last day.