Six US states have reported record daily increases in COVID-19 deaths, including Wisconsin, a battleground in the November 3 election, according to a Reuters analysis, as infections kept rising across the midwest and beyond.
Coronavirus deaths hit daily records in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Kansas, Hawaii and Wisconsin, the Reuters analysis found. Wisconsin also reported a record daily increase in new cases, together with Illinois, Kentucky, Colorado and Ohio, the analysis showed.
Sixty-six people succumbed to the coronavirus in Illinois, where Governor JB Pritzker imposed new restrictions in some counties this week, the state's highest single-day increase since mid-June.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 221,000 people in the United States and thrown millions out of work. President Donald Trump has eschewed social-distancing policies at his rallies and White House events and shrugged off the need for masks. Polls show his handling of the pandemic has hurt his re-election prospects.
On Wednesday, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said 48 people had died from the virus as he announced that a week-old field hospital in the Milwaukee suburbs had admitted its first patient.
In Kansas, where the death toll increased by 80 on Wednesday, Governor Laura Kelly said the pandemic was putting a strain on hospitals and all 62 residents of a nursing home in Norton County had contracted the virus and 10 had died.
Nationally, cases have been trending higher for five weeks, rising to 60,000 on average in the past seven days from a recent low of 35,000 a day in mid-September.
The rise in new inflections partly reflects stepped-up testing in many states, which has provided a more accurate picture of the spread of the virus.
The United States has averaged 734 daily coronavirus deaths in the past seven days, still well below the 2333 average at the height of the pandemic in April.
The latest outbreak on a per-capita-basis is most severe in the midwest, where daily case counts hit a record on Monday with more than 27,000 new infections reported.
Midwest hospitalisations climbed to 10,830 on Tuesday, hitting a record high for a fifth day in a row and raising fears that medical centres could become overwhelmed like in the early months of the pandemic in the US northeast.
Australian Associated Press
