Florida surpasses New York to have 2nd highest number of COVID-19 cases in U.S.

A mobile COVID-19 testing facility in Miami Beach.

(Image credit: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

published 27 July 2020

With 423,855 coronavirus cases recorded as of Sunday afternoon, Florida now has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the United States, surpassing New York.

Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that California, the country's most populous state, has the most cases, with 450,242. New York was the epicenter of the pandemic during the spring, and has recorded 411,736 cases.

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Florida began to reopen in May, and despite the number of cases going up since then, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has said he will not impose a statewide mask mandate and wants public schools reopened to their full capacity. DeSantis and Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran are now being sued by the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union, which alleges they are violating a Florida law that says schools must be kept "safe and secure."

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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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