U.S. records highest single-day total of new coronavirus cases


More than 36,000 new COVID-19 infections were reported in the United States on Wednesday, surpassing the previous one-day record of 34,203 cases set on April 25.
Florida and Texas both reported more than 5,000 new cases, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced his state recorded 7,149 new cases. "I want to remind everybody that we are still in the first wave of this pandemic," he told reporters during a virtual press conference. "That said, all throughout the last number of months, we've been preparing — we haven't been waiting, we haven't been describing ourselves as victims of fate." He also shared that California has increased its daily testing, conducting 95,970 tests over the last day.
Health officials are urging people to wear masks, wash their hands, and practice social distancing in order to slow the spread of the virus and not completely undo the gains that were made during state lockdowns. There are more than nine million COVID-19 cases worldwide, with over 2.3 million in the United States. At least 119,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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