US virus cases surge to highest level in 2 months
BEIJING (AP) — New coronavirus cases in the U.S. have surged to their highest level in two months and are now back to where they were at the peak of the outbreak.
The U.S. on Tuesday reported 34,700 new cases of the virus, according to a tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University that was published Wednesday. There have been only two previous days that the U.S. has reported more cases: April 9 and April 24, when a record 36,400 cases were logged.
New cases in the U.S. have been surging for more than a week after trending down for more than six weeks. While early hot spots like New York and New Jersey have seen cases steadily decrease, the virus has been hitting the south and west. Several states on Tuesday set single-day records, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada and Texas.
Cases were also surging in other parts of the world. India reported a record daily increase of nearly 16,000 new cases. Mexico, where testing rates have been low, also set a record with more than 6,200 new cases.
But China appears to have tamed a new outbreak of the virus in Beijing, once again demonstrating its ability to quickly mobilize vast resources by testing nearly 2.5 million people in 11 days.
In the U.S. state of Arizona, which on Tuesday reported a record 3,600 new infections, hundreds of young conservatives packed a megachurch to hear President Donald Trump's call for them to back his reelection bid.
As he did at a rally in Oklahoma over the weekend, Trump referred to the virus with a pejorative term directed at its emergence in China.
Ahead of the event, the Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, made clear that she did not believe the speech could be safely held in her city — and urged the president to wear a face mask. He did not. Trump has refused to wear a mask in public, instead turning it into a...
