FILE PHOTO: Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) arrive with a patient while a funeral car begins to depart at North Shore Medical Center where coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients are treated, in Miami, Florida, U.S. July 14, 2020.
NEW YORK: US deaths from COVID-19 rose for a third week in a row to more than 6,300 people in the seven days ended Jul 26, though the number of new cases fell 2 per cent, dropping for the first time after rising for five weeks, a Reuters analysis found.
Fifteen states have reported weekly increases in deaths for at least two consecutive weeks, according to the Reuters tally of state and county reports. In Texas, more than 1,000 people died in the last seven days, or 20 per cent of the state’s more than 5,000 total deaths.
Deaths are a lagging indicator and can continue to rise weeks after new infections drop.
There were nearly 460,000 new COVID-19 cases reported last week, according to the analysis. California, Florida and Texas collectively accounted for nearly 200,000 of the new cases, though the latter two states reported fewer new infections compared to the previous week.
Cases rose week-over-week in 30 states, including states in the Northeast and Midwest that had seen infections fall earlier in the year, such as New Jersey.
Testing for COVID-19 rose by 4 per cent in the United States last week and set a record on Friday, with nearly 930,000 tests performed, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.
Nationally, 8.1 per cent of tests came back positive for the novel coronavirus, down from 8.5 per cent the prior week but still higher than the 5 per cent level that the World Health Organization considers concerning because it suggests there are more cases in the community that have not yet been uncovered.
Thirty-two states had positivity test rates above 5 per cent, according to the analysis, including Arizona at 23 per cent, Mississippi at 22 per cent and Florida and Alabama at 19 per cent.
