Good evening,

July 3, 2020 -- As suspected in yesterday's report, many US counties did not report their numbers today, resulting in a partial daily report for the US, however, the country still reported very high numbers, which we will be able to analyze further on Monday when data reporting resumes (details below in the US section of this report). India (+22,721) blew away its previous record and is on its way to pass by Russia (+3,718) -- whose reports have been plateauing just below 7,000 new daily cases for the last 8 days -- by the end of the weekend, ranking third behind Brazil (+41,988 today) and the United States, on Monday morning. South Africa's acceleration is alarming because its most recent daily reports, for the first time above 9,000 today, have set new watermarks three times in the last week while the country's single day positivity rate has been steadily growing, ending the day at 23.22%, indicating rampant spread and under-testing. Also noteworthy is the acceleration in smaller countries: Israel and Guatemala, with similar infection counts. The two countries have very different stories. Israel seemed to have controlled its spread after peaking in late March (+738) down to (+28) at the end of May, only to see a sharp rise in the last two weeks and, above 1,000 new single-day cases for the first time today. Guatemala, on the other hand, had been under the radar, with very few reported cases for most of the spring season and a sudden jump in the last few weeks. One huge difference between Israel and Guatemala: testing. Israel has already tested over 1 million of its residents while Guatemala appears to have only started mass testing recently. When the country releases more testing data, we will be able to further evaluate the situation in the Central American country. Many other countries contributed large daily infections numbers, ending the global day at its second highest daily report with 208,669 new COVID-19 infections and 5,150 new related deaths .

*:incomplete data set

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The United States ends the day slightly below yesterday's record even with a partial report due to many counties' observance of the National Holiday.

Twelve states did report over 1,000 new cases today: New York, California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina. Many of those states reached new peaks or near peaks. The peaks are documented below.

The Madera County Department of Public Health announced this evening that 12 more of our county's residents have been confirmed infected with COVID-19 today, bringing our cumulative cases to 578 in Madera and total deaths in the county to 5. Six out of the seven counties did report new cases today, adding up to 647 new infections and 6 new COVID-19 deaths. COVID-19 has killed 342 residents from our area of the central valley, of which the cumulative documented infections now total 20,038. Fresno county leads the 7 counties with 5,851 cases.

The spread is accelerating in the central valley: this week, the 7 counties confirmed 4,113 new infections, a new peak with 999 more new cases than were reported last week, and 45 deaths, also a new peak with 6 more deaths than reported in last Friday's weekly update (see graphs below).

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