California Becomes the Second State to Hit 1 Million COVID-19 Cases

California is now the second state to pass the 1 million threshold of COVID-19 cases. According to COVID-19 statistics tracked by the Johns Hopkins University, since Nov. 1, ICU admissions and hospitalizations in California have hit a new record high, increasing relatively from 823 to 1,010 and from 3,241 to 4,002, while death cases have surpassed 18,000.

Southern California Leads the Surge

On Thursday, the Infectious disease expert Dr. John Swartzberg stated that "a very dark winter" is expected in California and criticized people for not following the virus restrictions. Dr. Swartzberg also predicts that "another 160,000 dead Americans if people just continue to wear the masks at the same rate they're wearing them” and do not keep the social distancing rules. 

The most problematic region turns out to be Southern California. According to the state data, there is a substantial COVID-19 surge in 10 counties, and mostly in Los Angeles where the number of infected people reached 330,500.

Orange County executive officer Frank Kim told CBS Los Angeles that his "biggest worry" is not only the increase of coronavirus cases but the upcoming holidays as "Most people nationally have been forecasting the worst of COVID is coming." On Thursday, Governor of California Gavin Newsom wrote on Twitter that people "absolutely must take these increases seriously" and their actions "could literally save lives."

During the past 12 days, the surge in COVID-19 cases in the US is alarming, forcing authorities to issue new safety measures to contain the spread. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Michael Osterholm stated on Yahoo! Finance that America should consider a four-to-six week lockdown and added that "We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers, losses to small companies and medium-sized companies, for cities, states, county governments."