The United States Passes a New Grim Record: 250,000 New COVID Cases in a Single Day

Cryptographer/Shutterstock

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized a second coronavirus vaccine made by Moderna on Friday, clearing the way for about 5.9 million more doses to become available in the United States to front-line health care workers. Pfizer, the company behind the first vaccine to be approved, says it shipped 2.9 million doses this past week. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci told the New York Times, “never before has anybody even imagined you would get vaccines to people in less than a year from the time that the sequence was made known.” 

That’s the good news. But the United States passed several new milestones this week. Pandemic fatigue, mask denial, and the holidays have helped fuel the skyrocketing rates of new cases.

The numbers vary slightly because of different methodologies but all the COVID trackers reported new all-time records for a single day of COVID cases: The New York Times says there were more than 250,000 new cases recorded in a single day. According to the NYT tracker there were 1 million new cases in just five days this week. Data from Johns Hopkins University and CNN reported 249,709 new coronavirus cases, while the Covid Tracking Project by the Atlantic found 228,825 new cases, a 9.5 percent increase in a day.

There are now more than 305,000 who have died in the United States. That number will continue to rise as cases climb. According to the NYT: “Three hundred thousand is more than the number of Americans who died fighting in World War II. It is roughly half the number of total cancer deaths expected this year. It is the population of Pittsburgh.” 

As the pandemic’s toll grows worse, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and other people of color have been hit the hardest.

Meanwhile, Congress’ talks over a relief package have extended into the weekend as unemployment benefits expire for 12 million Americans over the holidays. The president doesn’t appear to be concerned. Based on a Mother Jones analysis as of December 16, out of the 729 tweets Trump sent since Election Day, not a single one acknowledged the death toll of the coronavirus pandemic or encouraged Americans to take any precautions. Just 2 percent of his tweets mentioned the coronavirus at all.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate