As much of the country awaited the results of the presidential election last week, Texas became the first state in the United States to exceed 1 million cases of COVID-19.
On Friday night, NBC News reported 1,000,589 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the Lone Star State. The news came the same time the nation saw a record number of daily confirmed cases, nearly 126,000. The average number of new cases reported every day last week was nearly 100,000.
As of Sunday afternoon, NBC News’s coronavirus tracking map recorded 1,008,522 cases and 19,143 deaths in Texas. California trails Texas with 973,858 cases and 17,967 deaths. According to the outlet, Texas saw a 40% rise in cases and 10% in deaths over the last two weeks.
On the East Coast, New York has seen fewer cases but more deaths from the virus. NBC currently lists 532,428 cases and 34,559 deaths in New York. In New Jersey, there have been 257,178 cases and 16,426 deaths.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new testing requirements for entering the state and increased the amount of National Guardsmen at airports amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.
“You should not land if you do not have proof of a negative test upon landing,” Cuomo said. “I want people to know we’re serious.”
The new entry test policy requires travelers to provide a negative coronavirus test upon arrival in New York, followed by another negative test four days later.
According to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard, the U.S. leads the world with nearly 10 million cases and over 237,000 deaths.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is recruiting 8,000 volunteers for the phase three clinical trials of at least four COVID-19 vaccine candidates at 20 federal medical facilities across the U.S., Kaiser Health News reported Friday. J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of global health policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Defense Department and VA are a “natural fit” for the COVID-19 vaccine trials.
“DOD has lots of expertise. They know how to vaccinate; they know how to reach communities. They have a whole science infrastructure and research-and-development infrastructure. And when you are thinking what the mission of VA is, [VA] sees this as part of their mission,” Morrison said.
