China’s National Health Commission scaled back its daily COVID report starting Wednesday, after a decline in PCR testing as the government eased restrictions, the Associated Press reported. A notice on the commission’s website said it stopped publishing daily figures on numbers of COVID-19 cases where no symptoms are detected since it was “impossible to accurately grasp the actual number of asymptomatic infected persons.” The new means it will be more difficult to keep a true count of cases.
U.S. known cases of COVID are rising, along with hospitalizations, fatalities and test positivity, The daily average for new cases stood at 66,045 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 55% from two weeks ago. The average for hospitalizations was up 22% at an average of 38,732 while the number of deaths was up 65% to 473. Test positivity has climbed 23% to 12%. Globally, the confirmed case tally rose above 650.6 million on Wednesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins, while the death toll is above 6.65 million with the U.S leading the world with 99.5 million cases and 1,085,251 fatalities.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.