Florida and Texas lead US COVID-19 surge

Over the weekend, COVID-19 cases continued to surge across the country with Florida experiencing record daily highs of new cases and hospitalizations. The current surge of virus activity is due to the highly transmissible Delta (B1617.2) variant. Yesterday the country reported 25,141 new COVID-19 cases, and 71 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker. In total, America has confirmed 35,020,438 COVID-19 cases, including 613,254 deaths. The 7-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases is 78,472, according to data from the Washington Post. New daily cases rose 54.2% over the past week, while deaths rose by 31.6% and hospitalizations by 42.2%.