U.S. surpasses 20 million COVID-19 cases on first day of 2021

New York, January 1 (RHC)-- The number of confirmed U.S. coronavirus cases has surpassed 20 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.  That’s nearly twice as many as the No. 2 country, India, and nearly one-quarter of the more than 83 million cases globally.

The U.S. continued to surpass other countries in COVID-19 cases as it reached 20 million at the start of the new year, according to data kept by Johns Hopkins University.  COVID-19 deaths have also increased in the country, now totaling more than 346,000.

India and Brazil trail behind the United States in coronavirus cases at over 10 million and 7 million, respectively.

The increase comes as officials race to vaccinate millions of Americans but have come off to a slower and messier start.

President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration earlier this week for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines and vowed to ramp up the current speed of vaccinations.  However, Biden acknowledged that it “will still take months to have the majority of Americans vaccinated.”  Globally, more than 83 million cases have been confirmed.

The variant of the COVID-19 virus first found in the United Kingdom is now in Florida, health officials say.
For months, California did many of the right things to avoid a catastrophic surge from the coronavirus pandemic.  Now infections are racing out of control. 

Israel says it has vaccinated one million people against COVID-19, more than a tenth of its population, as it rolls out one of the world’s earliest and most rapid inoculation campaigns.  Police in Wisconsin say they’ve arrested a hospital employee suspected of intentionally spoiling COVID-19 vaccines.