WASHINGTON - On April 7, less than a month after reported cases of COVID-19 began to rise dramatically in the United States, the rate of new infections reached a peak: an average of 31,630 new cases per day, meaning close to 10 in every 100,000 Americans were testing positive daily. For months, that figure stood as the worst day in the pandemic’s spread at the national level.
Until now. The latest data show that, on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (June 23 and June 24), the U.S. surpassed that high-water mark, at more than 31,700 infections per day. The state of the pandemic in this country is officially worse than it has ever been.
America now has at least 2,446,706 cases on record, and at least 124,891 people have died.
As the country’s top health officials got before the cameras to deliver an urgent message for young Americans to practice social distancing and wear masks to help stop the spike in COVID-19 cases in 16 U.S. states, Trump was in the White House preparing to speak at an event about the American workforce.
He was also on Twitter, sending out an FBI notice looking for 15 people allegedly involved in trying to take down the statue of President Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square Park.
The night before, Trump sat with Fox News host Sean Hannity and repeated the false claim that the rise in new cases was a result of more testing.
Two days earlier Trump spoke to a packed 3,000 seat church in Phoenix, Ariz. filled with student supporters, seated closely together and most of them not covering their noses and mouths.
