California is first state to die 50,000 Covid

Covid-19 has killed nearly 51,000 people in California, which on Wednesday became the first state to pass 50,000 coronavirus-related deaths, according to a tally of reports from NBC News.

The state has seen more than 3.5 million infections, a statistic that also leads the nation on the basis of raw numbers. California is also the most populous state with around 40 million people.

As of Wednesday night, New York State had more than 48,000 reported deaths and Texas had more than 42,000, according to the NBC News tally.

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Part of the increase in deaths reported in California on Wednesday came from Los Angeles County, which reported 806 deaths that were not initially counted as associated with Covid-19.

The county health department said the deaths came after extensive checks of death records and occurred during a sharp increase from Dec. 3 to Feb. 3.

At the time of the outbreak, not all of the deaths were reported to the department due to the volume of cases, officials said. A subsequent examination of vital records listing the cause of death found them, he said. There have already been more than 9,700 deaths reported from December through January, according to the report.

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“It is heartbreaking to report this large number of additional deaths associated with Covid-19 and a devastating reminder of the terrible toll the winter wave has caused so many families across the county,” Barbara Ferrer, Los County Department Director Angeles Public Health said in a statement.

New cases of Covid-19 reported daily have declined across the country in recent weeks, but health experts said the numbers were still very high.

On Sunday, the nation passed 500,000 dead. As of Wednesday evening, the United States had recorded more than 28 million cases, according to the count of NBC News.