According to the Bing COVID-19 Tracker, the number of global cases has reached 10,145,947, after a one-day gain of 254,220. The increase is a very sharp spike from the day before. For weeks, the United States, the United Kingdom and most of the rest of Europe had decreasing numbers of new cases and deaths, while the figures picked up in Russia, India and Latin America. That is no longer true, particularly for counts in the United States, where the surge has gotten worse in the past several days as the disease has moved from the badly battered Northeast, Michigan, and Illinois to states in the south and west.

Active cases worldwide are up to 4,503,062, and they are 45% of the total of global confirmed cases. The recovered case count is 5,140,987, which is up by 136,420. The positive difference between the daily increase in recovered and active cases continues to show improvement. For several days, this daily spread was above 500,000, one of the few good signs as the pandemic continues.

Global fatal cases have hit 501,898, higher by 5,823. At the current pace, the figure could top 600,000 well before the end of July. They are just above 5% of the world’s confirmed cases total, but many experts believe the death count is much too low, in part because many developing nations cannot track or accurately count numbers.

As noted, the acceleration of the spread of the disease worldwide is because of an explosion of new cases in America. The increase in confirmed cases there has been by more than 30,000 in each of the past five days and jumped by over 40,000 on two of those days. Several large states are responsible for the U.S. swell, including the three largest by population: California, Texas and Florida. These three states have about 26% of the U.S. population total. Increases are not isolated to them though. The numbers also are rising quickly in Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina and Wyoming.

Total confirmed cases in the United States, the hardest-hit nation, have reached 2,593,169, after rising by 36,704 in the past day. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) commented that the actual U.S. confirmed case figure may be above 20 million and many of these people have no symptoms. The official U.S. confirmed cases count is 26% of the world’s total.

Active U.S. COVID-19 cases number 1,645,778, and recovered cases have reached 788,904, a one-day gain of 5,669. It remains a bad sign that there are many more active cases than recovered ones. American coronavirus fatalities have hit 127,693, or 241 higher. That increase was small compared to most days in the prior week. However, one theory suggests that deaths will pick up in the wake of the spike in confirmed cases. There is a lag of as much as two weeks between when a person becomes infected and when serious symptoms arise.

Los Angeles County, the Nation’s Largest, Is Hit Hard

California’s confirmed cases have risen into second place among states by that measure. They have reached 211,243, which is up by 4,810. That is still well behind New York State’s 392,539 cases, which added a more modest 616. COVID-19 deaths in California were up 33 to 5,905, which is much lower than New York’s of 24,835. Fortunately, New York’s death count rose by only five since yesterday. In late April, the increases in deaths in New York were above 700 for several days.

California’s population is almost 40 million, which is 12% of the national total. Many of California’s confirmed cases are concentrated in Los Angeles County, which is the nation’s largest county by far, with a population of 9,818,605.

Confirmed cases in the county number 95,341, or 2,013 higher. Fatalities added 18 to reach 3,285. Los Angeles County currently has 45% of the confirmed cases and 55% of the deaths in the state. The primary reason for the high figures may be a concentration of large cities in the county. The City of Los Angeles has almost 4 million residents. The county has three other cities with populations above 200,000: Long Beach, Santa Clarita and Glendale.

Indonesia, a Huge County With Very Few Cases

As measured by population, Indonesia ranks fourth in the world, at 269,603,400. That is about 80% of the U.S. figure. However, Indonesia has 55,092 confirmed cases, after an increase of 1,082. Based on the number of confirmed cases, it ranks 28th in the world based. Total COVID deaths are an improbable 2,805, or 51 higher.

This kind of disconnect exists in several other of the world’s largest nations as measured by population. Another extraordinary example is Nigeria, which has a population of 206,139,587 but just 24,567 confirmed cases.

It is highly unlikely that the disease barely has spread in these countries. It is more likely that they have infrastructures that will never allow them to have accurate counts.

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