California, Texas, Idaho record daily highs in new COVID-19 cases Monday

California, Texas and Idaho all recorded their highest daily counts of new COVID-19 cases Monday as southern and western states work to contain their outbreaks.

The two most populous states in the U.S. — California and Texas — continue to see rising case numbers after most states loosened their coronavirus restrictions last month. Both states had broken their records for the highest number of new cases last week.

California documented 5,813 new COVID-19 cases, the highest since the state documented 4,250 new cases on June 17. On Sunday, California confirmed 3,953 new cases and on Saturday, 4,011 new cases, according to the COVID Tracking Project. 

Texas reached 4,760 new cases within the state on Monday, a rise from the 3,292 and 4,272 counted on Sunday and Saturday, respectively. The Lone Star state also broke its record for the most new cases last week with 4,645 recorded on June 19.

Idaho, on the other hand, experienced a jump on Monday counting 242 new cases, after confirming 19 on Sunday and 135 on Saturday. Its previous record for new daily cases was reached April 2, with 221 new cases documented. 

In total, California has confirmed 178,054 cases, Texas has 114,881 cases and Idaho has 4,006 cases. The states have seen 5,515 deaths, 2,192 deaths and 89 deaths, respectively.

The counties that contain major cities are experiencing the most cases and deaths in each state, including Los Angeles County in California; Harris County, which contains most of Houston, and Dallas County in Texas; and Ada County, which holds Idaho’s capital Boise. 

Several other states have reached their highest daily number of new cases throughout the pandemic over the past few days, including Oklahoma on Sunday. Other states that documented their highest daily counts on Saturday include Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and Utah. 

The news of the highest daily increase in new cases comes as top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has called the recent spikes in cases “disturbing.”

“However, in other areas of the country, we are now seeing a disturbing surge of infections that looks like it’s a combination, but one of the things is an increase in community spread. And that’s something I’m really quite concerned about,” Fauci said. 

The U.S. is documenting about 30,000 new cases per day after previously counting about 20,000 per day before this past weekend. 

The Trump administration has attributed the increased number of cases to the increased testing, although testing has remained relatively stable, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.