US coronavirus infection count hits 8 million as third 'surge' underway, reports say

Confirmed infections from the coronavirus in the US have reached more than 8 million, with spikes in nearly every state prompting fears of a third “surge” nearly eight months after an outbreak that has killed more than 217,000 people.

At least 17 states have seen case spikes higher than any other point during the pandemic.

“After a month of warning signs, this week’s data makes it clear: The third surge of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States is underway,” according to The COVID Tracking Project.

New infections jumped by 18 per cent this week, bringing the seven-day average of new daily cases to more than 51,000, the organisation reported.

New hospitalisations and deaths also are trending upward.

Nine states among the 17 seeing dramatic spikes are in the Midwest, with six in the western US.

The Midwest has seen an 81 per cent increase in infections within the last month, based on seven-day averages, the COVID Tracking Project found, while cases in the northeast – which saw a decline in recent months following a deadly spring – have than doubled in the same period.

North Dakota and South Dakota have the highest per capita case rates – South Dakota’s average case rate over the last two weeks reached nearly 24 per cent, more than four times the national average, The COVID Tracking Project reported.

New weekly cases have not dropped below 250,000 since June.

As nationwide infections reached 8 million on Thursday, Donald Trump told supporters that the outbreak is “ending anyway.”

“They go crazy when I say it,” he told a crowd in North Carolina. “It’s going to peter out, and it’s going to end."

Johns Hopkins University has recorded nearly 218,000 coronavirus-related deaths.

As lawmakers and the White House negotiate relief legislation for millions of out-of-work Americans, who have lost jobs as well as healthcare in the economic fallout, America’s poor has grown by more than 8 million since May, according to research from Columbia University, first reported by The New York Times.

On Thursday, the US Labour Department reported 886,000 people filed new unemployment claims within the last week, a spike of nearly 10 per cent from the previous week.

House Democrats have twice passed massive relief packages extending long-expired additional unemployment benefits, the Republican Senate has balked at the legislation, while the president has paused and then renewed negotiations for a plan as Election Day nears.