California and Texas marked record spikes in new Covid-19 infections on Monday to cap a week that saw the highest-ever number of new infections reported in the United States.
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This new surge in cases in the southern and western parts of the country ended up being the second wave of infections in the US, undoing gains made by north-eastern states such as New York and New Jersey that finally controlled their outbreaks to a large extent.
The state of New York (with NYC as the epicentre) led the ‘first-wave states’ that also included New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania when the coronavirus first swept through the country in March. By early April, 60% of all new cases in the US could be traced to just these five states. Since then, their contribution to new cases dropped to just 6% in the last seven days.
Cases in these ‘first-wave’ states peaked in early April, which resulted in a clear flattening of the new infection curve from April 10 (See chart).
{{/usCountry}}Cases in these ‘first-wave’ states peaked in early April, which resulted in a clear flattening of the new infection curve from April 10 (See chart).
{{/usCountry}}However, this drop was undone as the virus started spreading in the southeast and the west. California is among a number of US states including Florida, Texas Arizona and North Carolina, battling a new wave of infections as the nation emerges from weeks of clamp-downs. The ‘second-wave’ states were responsible for less than 3% of new cases reported in the final week of March. Since then, their contribution to the infections has grown to 30% in the last seven days.