[stormin48061]

when the beds run out, it doesn't much matter of the rhetoric of how you catch it, if you should wear a mask, if you don't believe it's here, if more testing = more cases, really doesn't matter. I read an article where the head doc tried to explain that ppl behaviour is driven by the aversion and resisting to being told what to do rather than looking at it from a safety angle.

Since that weekend, cases and hospitalizations in several states — especially Texas, California, Arizona and Florida — soared.

In the last two days, Texas has hit its highest number of new cases with 10,028 on Tuesday and 9,979 on Wednesday, easily beating the previous record of 8,258, according to The Washington Post’s database. As of Monday, 8,700 people in the state are hospitalized with COVID-19 and doctors anticipate that they will soon run out of hospital beds.

RELATED: At Least 56 Florida Hospital ICUs Have Hit Capacity as Coronavirus Cases Soar

That's already happening in Florida, where 56 intensive care units in the state are now full as of Tuesday. And an additional 35 hospital ICUs have 10 percent or fewer beds remaining. Florida saw 9,989 new cases on Wednesday, increasing the total to 223,783 since the start of the pandemic, and the state has the third-most cases in the country, after New York and California.

California, the most populous state in the country, was initially handing the COVID-19 pandemic well compared to New York. But after beaches, restaurants and bars reopened around Memorial Day, cases soared. On Wednesday, the state hit its highest daily total yet with 11,694 new infections, breaking the record they set two days prior of 11,529.

And in Arizona, new cases have started trending downwards, with 3,520 reported on Wednesday, below the record of 4,433 set on July 3. However, hospitals are nearly full, and the state had its lowest-ever number of available ICU beds on Tuesday. More than 1 in 4 people in Arizona are testing positive for the virus.