Texas records over 1 million coronavirus cases

Texas on Friday hit more than 1 million total coronavirus infections since the pandemic began, making it the first state to reach the grim milestone, according to NBC News.  

The news comes as the U.S. set a new record for single-day coronavirus infections on Thursday, with the country confirming more than 118,000 new infections for two days in a row.  

California is not far behind the Lone Star State with 960,361 cumulative cases. 

New cases were up 40 percent in Texas, according to NBC, with the new surge concentrated in Harris, Dallas and El Paso counties in the past week, Reuters noted. 

Deaths in Texas have also risen 10 percent over the past two weeks, according to NBC, with total number of deaths in the state standing at 18,977 as of Friday morning.

Health officials have warned that the cold and flu season would lead to six-digit figures of cases, though the numbers spiked sooner than expected, CNN reported. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its ensemble forecast on Thursday, estimating between 250,000 and 266,000 COVID-19 total U.S. deaths by the end of November.

There are currently more than 9.8 million total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 237,000 people have died.