US surpasses 20 million COVID-19 cases on first day of 2021

The number of confirmed US coronavirus cases has surpassed 20 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

That’s nearly twice as many as the No. 2 country, India, and nearly one-quarter of the more than 83 million cases globally.

The US continued to surpass other countries in COVID-19 cases as it reached 20 million at the start of the new year, according to data kept by Johns Hopkins University.

COVID-19 deaths have also increased in the country, now totaling more than 346,000.

India and Brazil trail behind the US in coronavirus cases at over 10 million and 7 million, respectively.

The increase comes as officials race to vaccinate millions of Americans but have come off to a slower and messier start.

President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration Tuesday for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and vowed to ramp up the current speed of vaccinations. However, Biden acknowledged that it “will still take months to have the majority of Americans vaccinated.”

Globally, more than 83 million cases have been confirmed.

UK strain of COVID-19 virus found in Florida: State officials

The variant of the COVID-19 virus first found in the United Kingdom is now in Florida, health officials say.

For months, California did many of the right things to avoid a catastrophic surge from the coronavirus pandemic. Now infections are racing out of control. Tens of thousands of Americans have volunteered to test COVID-19 vaccines, but only about half of them got the real thing during trials. Experts now debate whether to offer all volunteers the real thing. Israel says it has vaccinated 1 million peopl e against COVID-19, more than a tenth of its population, as it rolls out one of the world’s earliest and most rapid inoculation campaigns. Police in Wisconsin say they’ve arrested a hospital employee suspected of intentionally spoiling COVID-19 vaccines.

(Source: AP)

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