During the first wave of the coronavirus here in California the number of daily cases peaked in July at just under 13,000. Today, the state’s coronavirus dashboard shows the number of cases reported in the last 24 hours was 20,759. That’s a new record and there’s reason to think the number will continue climbing.

Because California has such a large population it’s still doing better on a per capita basis than a lot of states but maybe not for much longer. In short, the numbers look pretty bad right now:

The 14-day test positivity rate sat at 5.6% one week ago. On Tuesday, that number skyrocketed to 6.5%. Over the past 24 hours, it rose nearly a half percent to 6.9%. In a state as large as California, that half percent alone could mean as many as 200,000 more infections…

On Tuesday, the California Covid-19 dashboard indicated that, while the state had actually seen a decrease in infected ICU patients, the line tracing the number of hospitalizations was nearly straight up, with the state reporting a record 9,365 people hospitalized with the virus.

The percentage of hospitalized COVID patients who require treatment in an ICU has been steady at 12 percent, so if hospitalizations spike, ICU beds will fill up and at present they are already more than halfway full.

This article was sourced from Hot Air