California became the first U.S. state to record 2 million cases of coronavirus.
According to the Johns Hopkins University count released Thursday, California has 2,010,157 cases. The state has suffered more than 23,000 deaths from the disease.
The infection rate in California – in terms of number of cases per 100,000 people – is lower than the U.S. average, but its nearly 40 million inhabitants mean the outbreak outpaces other states in sheer numbers.
The sad figure comes at a time when authorities say social gatherings for Thanksgiving are exacerbating the crisis and the state’s medical resources are running out. More than 18,000 people are hospitalized in California and many of the intensive care units are in capacity.
The state has seen its number of cases rise exponentially in recent weeks, fueled mostly by people who ignored the warnings and held traditional Thanksgiving Day celebrations, health authorities say. Rising rates of hospitalizations and deaths have overwhelmed intensive care units and forced hospitals to place emergency room patients in tents and treat others in offices and auditoriums.
Almost the entire state is in a lockdown that includes a night curfew, the closure of many businesses and restrictions that leave retail activity at 20% capacity. Restaurants can only serve takeaway food.
Orders to avoid social gatherings for Christmas and New Year’s Eve have a particularly desperate tone in Southern California. Los Angeles County leads the resurgence of infections, with a third of the state’s cases and nearly 40% of deaths.
“We know this emergency is our blackest day, perhaps the blackest in the city’s history,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday, when the county reported its highest total deaths and hospitalizations in a single day since and onset of the pandemic – 145 dead and more than 6,000 people in hospitals.