Good evening,

July 6, 2020 -- None of the large countries set a daily record today, but all contributed to rush the world toward 12 million cases the day after tomorrow, only 5 days after having passed the 11 million mark. India is now ahead of Russia and, 11 or 12 days from now, will likely become the third country with over 1 million cases, after the United States (now with 3 million infections), and Brazil (1.6 million). The Philippines announced its first case on January 30th: a 38 year old Chinese woman who died three days later. Since then the country had managed the spread of the virus, but last week saw a sharp uptick in new cases and possibly the birth of a new global hot spot, which we will monitor closely moving forward. You can see on the graph below that the country had reached 1,000 daily cases only 4 times in 5 months: once in May, three times in June, then, twice since Friday, and reported over 2,000 new cases in the last two days. The virus is relentless. We cannot let our guard down, anywhere in the world. There is no winning until we have a vaccine.

*:incomplete data set

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

The United States have counted 358,479 new cases in the last 7 days, adding up to 3 million infections.

Texas peaked again today, Arizona ran out of ICU beds, and the first national hot spot, the state of Washington, also surprisingly set a new single day record, after having managed its curve for many months, oscillating around 300 daily cases, even going down to +73 on May 16, then slowly inching up thereafter. Today's +1,177 was a shocking reminder that we cannot let up our vigilance, we cannot relax our guards against the disease, or the numbers start to climb again immediately as the virus seeks and finds new hosts, followed by increased hospitalizations and more deaths. We cannot let up until we have a vaccine.

The Madera County Department of Public Health announced this evening that 135 more of our county's residents have been confirmed infected with COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing our cumulative cases to 713 in Madera; we also lost two of our neighbors his weekend, bringing the county's total COVID-19 related deaths to 7.

The State of California announced today that it will start monitoring our county because our rising positivity rate has triggered the state to temporarily close certain vulnerable businesses; the specifics will be available tomorrow when the order is issued. The Madera county's COVID-19 dashboard website was not updated when I started this report, but I was informed that 56 of the 135 new cases were reported today, so I divided the remaining 79 cases between the two previous day in the data and corresponding graph below. I will adjust the Madera information when the confirmed data is released to the public.

All 7 counties reported new cases today, adding up to a new central valley peak of 1,236 new infections and 4 new COVID-19 deaths. COVID-19 has killed 348 residents from our area of the central valley, of which the cumulative documented infections now total 21,924. Fresno county leads the 7 counties with 6,599 cases, peaking today with 373 new cases. Fresno county also reported today that one of its residents was also taken way from us. Tulare's 382 new cases is also its highest released case number, but as it covers three days, I am not considering it a one-day peak.

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