Texas Surpasses 1 Million Coronavirus Cases, Ranks Highest in US

By Madelaine D. First Posted: Nov 07, 2020 10:29 AM EST

While the nation is glued in monitoring the presidential election results, Texas quietly inched its way towards one million coronavirus cases.

(Photo : Go Nakamura/Getty Images)
Texas Hits 1 Million Coronavirus Cases, Highest Rate in the US Houston Hospital Continues To Deal With Spike In Covid Cases HOUSTON, TX - OCTOBER 31: A medical staff member treats a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) at the United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC) on October 31, 2020 in Houston, Texas. According to reports, Texas has reached over 916,000 cases, including over 18,000 deaths.

There were 1,000,589 confirmed coronavirus cases on the record on late Friday night, the latest NBC News figures revealed.

Texas beat California, which had 960,361 cases. California holds the highest count in the said category for the last month. However, in the past two weeks, both states have seen a surge of new cases.

The new COVID-19 cases in Texas increased to 40 percent and 31 percent in California, the NBC News analysis showed.

NBC News also confirmed that the record upticks were among those that propelled the U.S. to a record 122,365 new cases in a single day on Friday. It's the third day in a row that cases climbed over 100,000 in a day.

According to the Johns Hopkins University Covid-19 dashboard, the U.S. leads in the world's highest coronavirus records, with almost 9.7 million cases and nearly 237,000 deaths.

In Texas, casualties were also up 10 percent more than the last two weeks, with a total of 18,977 deaths as of Friday morning.

However, Texas's coronavirus death records are far less than in New York, leading the country with 34,521 deaths. New York was struck early by the pandemic when scientists were still figuring out how the coronavirus was spreading.

Since late May, 94 percent of the coronavirus cases and 91 percent of Texas's deaths occurred after Governor Greg Abbott began loosening restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19.

According to Business Insider, Texas COVID-19 cases rose between 3,000 and 5,000 on most days from late September to early October. At the start of November, the figure has been over 7,000 on most days.

The road to one million is also driven by a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases in July and August when the disease rapidly spread through Texas's southern and western portions, following tearing on the northeast in March, April, and May.

Florida is the state with the third-largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 832,625, with 17,224 deaths.