US reels as July cases hit new record

The US recorded more than 1.9 million new infections in July, nearly 42% of the over 4.5 million cases reported nationwide since the pandemic began and more than double the number documented in any other month, according to data compiled by New York Times. The previous monthly high came in April, when more than 880,000 new cases were recorded.
White House coronavirus task force leader Dr Deborah Birx said on Sunday that the infections in mark a “new phase” for the pandemic as she doubled down on calls to wear face masks and observe social distancing measures. Birx, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union”, said “What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread.”
The virus is picking up dangerous speed in much of the Midwest — and in states from Mississippi to Florida to California that thought they had already seen the worst of it. Across the country, deaths from the virus continued to rise. At the start of July, the average death toll was about 500 per day. Over the last week, it has averaged more than 1,000 daily, with many of those concentrated in Sun Belt states.
Across the world, the situation is equally grim. In Australia, the country’s second-most populous state of Victoria declared a state of disaster on Sunday and imposed a nightly curfew for the capital Melbourne as part of its harshest movement restrictions to date afterreporting 671 infections, one of its highest, and seven deaths. Japan recorded 1,540 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the country’s ministry of health announced on Sunday. Of the 1,540 new cases in the country, 472 were recorded in Tokyo.
In Europe, coronavirus outbreaks at mink farms in Spain and the Netherlands have scientists digging into how the animals got infected and if they can spread it to people. In the meantime, authorities have killed more than 1 million minks at breeding farms in both countries as a precaution.