US, Australia, Maxico reports jump in daily Covid cases

America, Maxico and Australia are facing rapid surge in new Covid cases. The US has now reported more than 35 million cases in total. And the US is now averaging 100,000 new Covid-19 infections a day, The US was averaging about 11,000 cases a day in late June. Now the number is 107,143. It took the US about nine months to cross the 100,000 average case number in November before peaking at about 250,000 in early January. Cases bottomed out in June but took about six weeks to go back above 100,000, despite a vaccine that has been given to more than 70 per cent of the adult population.The virus is spreading quickly through unvaccinated populations, especially in the South where hospitals have been overrun with patients.

Health officials are fearful that cases will continue to soar if more Americans don’t embrace the vaccine. “Our models show that if we don’t (vaccinate people), we could be up to several hundred thousand cases a day, similar to our surge in early January,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said.The number of Americans hospitalized with the virus has also skyrocketed and it has gotten so bad that many hospitals are scrambling to find beds for patients in far-off locations.Houston officials say the latest wave of Covid-19 cases is pushing the local health care system to nearly “a breaking point,” resulting in some patients having to be transferred out of the city to get medical care, including one who had to be taken to North Dakota. Ambulances were waiting hours to offload patients at Houston area hospitals because no beds were available. 

Australia reported a record daily number of new coronavirus cases this year on Saturday with the highly infectious Delta variant continuing to spread through the country's most populous states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. About 15 million people in the three states, or 60 per cent of Australia's population, under a strict lockdown, the country also reported five coronavirus-related deaths, one of the highest this year. NSW reported 319 new locally acquired Covid-19 cases, the most since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.There are 345 people admitted to hospital in NSW, with 56 in intensive care and 23 under ventilation, state authorities said. Sydney and neighbouring regional centres spanning 200 km of coastline under a stay-at-home order for six weeks already. Victoria saw the highest daily jump in cases this year, with 29 new infections, as the state remains under a snap seven-day lockdown imposed earlier this week, the state's sixth since the start of the pandemic.

Mexico City and a half-dozen of the country's 32 states are now on red alert as COVID-19 infections rose to their highest level ever. As of Friday, Mexico had over 144,000 active coronavirus cases nationwide, 4.6% more than the previous peak during the country's surge in January.The country has seen 243,733 test-confirmed deaths, but the country does little testing and studies of death certificates indicate the real toll is nearly 370,000.Nearly a quarter of the country is now on the highest level of alert, which requires some non-essential businesses to close and forces others to serve fewer customers at a time.  The federal Health Department said the capital is red on a color-coded alert system for the pandemic, but Mexico City officials claimed they were still on orange level, which allows wider business activity.We do not believe we should close economic activities, but rather accelerate the pace of vaccination," Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said. Hospitals across Mexico are now at 51% of capacity. Mexico has never had a European-style strict lockdown, nor has it required face masks, or testing or vaccinations for visitors. Mexico has vaccinated 48 million people, or about 38% of the total population, with at least one dose.