Good evening,

June 19, 2020 -- This work week started with the world reaching 8 million cumulative COVID-19 cases and this week will end, this Sunday, 6 days later, above 9 million cases. If you read yesterday's report, you saw the huge global jump attributed to a discovery of 31,412 previously unreported infections in Chile. We knew that today Brazil would become the second country after the United States with over a million confirmed coronavirus infections. What we did not foresee was the staggering one-day total published this afternoon, the highest report to date from any country. Brazil announced their new peak of 55,209 new cases, and the virus killed 1,221 more Brazilians today. Unfortunately, many other countries also reported new peaks: India, Egypt, Argentina, Iraq and many near peak countries, including the United States, contributed to the worst day of the pandemic, establishing 179,981 as the new global peak, while 6,239 people have lost their fight against the virus in the last 24 hours.

Tip: click on any of the graphs for larger and clearer images and click on READ MORE to view the complete articles.

*:incomplete data set

The United States is aggressively trending towards a new peak.

Ten days ago, only three states were reporting over 1,000 new single-day cases. Today nine states fit the description, including Empire State; sadly, five of them set new peaks: Texas, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Utah also set a new record (+586). Also today, Texas overtook Massachusetts' fifth national rank in cumulative cases, a day earlier than predicted. A few weeks ago, during the worst weeks of the Pandemic in the US (March/April), our average daily reports oscillated around 30,000 cases. Today, our nation added 33,633 new single day cases. The country is now back in the full throat of the monster, with a big difference: many Americans think this virus is no longer a threat and forget the horror stories from the New York and New Jersey hospitals. This means that we will hit over 1,000 deaths per day within two weeks and the country's hospitals will be overwhelmed by Independence Day. I want to be wrong about this, but the trends I see force me to write these words.

Click on the image to view the tabled data.

The Madera County Department of Public Health announced this evening that 19 more of our county's residents are infected with COVID-19, bringing our cumulative cases to 314 in Madera. The sharp rise of 151 new cases in the last 12 days, since the last day with no new reported case, represent 48% of all the confirmed infections in Madera since the onset of the pandemic. Also noteworthy, 4 people were hospitalized at the start of the week, today 11 people are being treated in local medical facilities. COVID-19 has killed 258 residents from our area of the central valley, of which the cumulative documented infections now total 12,811. This last week has added the highest number of cases in the combined 7 counties, with the second highest number of coronavirus victims, per 7 day-period, in the last 12 weeks.

Note: The tests information was estimated because Tulare and Merced counties do not explicitly share the data (only occasionally in Merced press releases), however, the positivity rate is available in the Merced County dashboard and the state of California also publishes the Tulare positivity rate, which enabled me to estimate the tests quantities.

Madera + 6 local counties

7 counties together