Sacramento, August 15 (RHC)-- California became the first state in the United States to surpass 600,000 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, although Governor Gavin Newsom said he was encouraged to see that hospitalisations have declined 20 percent over the past two weeks and admissions to ICU wards were down 14 percent in the same period.

"The number that really matters to us is that positivity rate," he said when asked about the state's caseload.  The positivity rate -- the number of confirmed infections as a percentage of tests done -- has declined from 7 percent to 6 percent statewide over the past 14 days, Newsom said.

The California governor said: "I'm not going to back off on more tests because I fear [more cases]."