US: Texas becomes 1st state to surpass 1M virus cases

ANKARA

Texas became the first US state that topped one million coronavirus cases on Wednesday, according to a running tally of Johns Hopkins University.

The state recorded a total of 1,010,364 cases and nearly 19,350 virus-related fatalities.

California's infection number is also inching closer to a million with 991,162. More than 18,000 people lost their battle against COVID-19 in the state.

Recently, many states -- including Nevada, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Maryland, have urged people to stay home voluntarily.

The Maryland-based university's data showed that the US reported more than 100,000 new cases for an eighth consecutive day on Tuesday and hospitalization numbers continue to be high.

The country continues to be the worst-hit by the virus as it has recorded more than 10.2 million cases and nearly 240,000 deaths. So far 3.9 million people have recovered from the disease.

While the spike in the cases continues, US drugmaker Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech announced Monday their virus vaccine candidate is more than 90% effective against the novel coronavirus.

If approved as safe and effective, the first batch of vaccines will start to be distributed to millions of Americans in December, according to Gen. Gustave F. Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed -- an initiative to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.