US reports 130,000 new cases, fourth straight daily record

The United States on Saturday reported a record increase in coronavirus cases for a fourth consecutive day with at least 131,420 new infections, bringing the country's total caseload to about 9.91 million, according to a Reuters tally, report agencies.
Seventeen states reported a record one-day increase on Saturday while 14 states reported record daily numbers of hospitalized patients.
The number of deaths nationwide was more than 1,000 for a fifth consecutive day on Saturday, according to a Reuters tally.
Ten US states have so far reported record daily deaths during the first seven days of November: Arkansas, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Based on a seven-day average, the United States is reporting over 100,000 new cases daily, more than the combined average for India and France, two of the worst affected countries in Asia and Europe.
The Midwest remains the hardest-hit US region based on daily new cases per capita.
Meanwhile, the novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,258,066 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by Worldometers Sunday.
At least 50,377,799 cases of coronavirus have been registered. Of these, at least 35,620,816 are now considered recovered.
On Saturday, 7,370 new deaths and 602,036 new cases were recorded worldwide. Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 991, followed by India with 559 and Mexico with 485.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 162,269 deaths from 5,653,561 cases, India with 126,121 deaths from 8,507,754 cases, Mexico with 94,808 deaths from 961,938 cases, and the United Kingdom with 48,888 deaths from 1,171,441 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Belgium with 111 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Peru with 106, Spain (83) and Brazil (76).
China - excluding Hong Kong and Macau - has to date declared 86,212 cases, including 4,634 deaths and 81,168 recoveries.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 411,726 deaths from 11,599,214 cases, Europe 304,881 deaths from 12,549,042 infections, and the United States and Canada 247,605 deaths from 10,120,352 cases.
Asia has reported 176,524 deaths from 11,012,350 cases, the Middle East 64,398 deaths from 2,730,050 cases, Africa 44,804 deaths from 1,870,001 cases, and Oceania 941 deaths from 29,927 cases.
As a result of corrections by national authorities or late publication of data, the figures updated over the past 24 hours may not correspond exactly to the previous day's tallies.
Another report adds: President-elect Joe Biden, who the Associated Press projected as the winner of the 2020 election on Saturday, will assume office on Jan. 20.
He will likely do so amid surging coronavirus cases and increased deaths, and with no end in sight.
Instantly, he will shoulder several herculean tasks, including a massive testing scale-up, restoring the credibility of government scientists, and overseeing the eventual distribution of hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. Perhaps most daunting, in a country plagued by apathy and misinformation: Biden will need to earn the buy-in of the American public.
Much of the work has already begun. In interviews with STAT, several Biden health advisers described a forthcoming effort to court skeptical mayors and governors, select and vet leaders for key public health agencies, and set a new tone for the nation's pandemic response, even in the 10 weeks before he takes office. Many in the president-elect's brain trust spoke on the condition that the conversations remain private until Biden was declared the winner.
The pandemic may have proved a decisive factor in Biden's win. In the months before the election, polls consistently showed that voters believed Biden would respond to Covid-19 more effectively than Trump. In one exit poll, a majority of voters said they favored pandemic containment measures even at the economy's expense. Two in 10 voters listed the pandemic as their top deciding factor, though one-third of voters said their top issue was the economy.