California first US state to surpass 3 million COVID-19 cases

LOS ANGELES - California on Wednesday became the first state in the United States to register more than 3 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, showed data released by the state health authorities.

The California Department of Public Health confirmed 22,403 new COVID-19 infections in a daily release, pushing its cumulative cases up to 3,019,371. The Golden state is the most populous US state with a population of around 40 million.

Official statistics showed that it took about 10 months for California to reach the threshold of 1 million confirmed cases on Nov 13, 2020 since the start of the pandemic and another six weeks to hit the 2 million mark on Dec 24, 2020. The state went on to hit the 3 million mark in four weeks.

The department also reported 694 additional deaths on Wednesday, the second-highest daily rise in the state. There have been 34,433 COVID-19 deaths to date.

There are 19,979 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in the state with 4,682 of them in intensive care, the department said.

Public health officials said that providers have reported administering a total of 1,525,816 vaccine doses statewide as of Tuesday.