California hits unwelcome milestone with 1 million COVID-19 cases – By Brian Melley (Associated Press) / Nov 12 2020
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A month ago, Antonio Gomez III was a healthy 46-year-old struggling like so many others to balance work and parenting during the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, he’s struggling to breathe after a three-week bout with the deadly virus.
Gomez let down his guard to see his parents and contracted one of the more than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California. For months, the virus has hammered the economy, disproportionately affected the poor and upended daily life — and now the state and the rest of the country are trying to curb another surge of infections.
California on Thursday became the second state — behind Texas — to eclipse a million known cases, while the U.S. has surpassed 10 million infections, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The nation’s most populous state — with 40 million residents — ranks 39th nationwide in the number of cases per 100,000 residents.