California leads US with 50,000 COVID deaths

This puts it ahead of New York state with 48k reported deaths (a total which may soon rise sharply due to the nursing home scandal), and Texas with slightly over 42k.

According to NBC News, what pushed the state over the 50k mark was the fact that a record check added almost a thousand deaths to the running total (806, to be precise), due to a previous clerical error being corrected.

These deaths occurred during the last "wave" of the virus, between the beginning of Dec. 2020 and the beginning of Feb. 2021.

In fact, during that two-month period, an eye-popping total of 9700 deaths in total were reported in the state.

Barbara Ferrer, the LA County Department of Public Health's director, said:

"It is heartbreaking to report on this large number of additional deaths associated with Covid-19 and a devastating reminder of the terrible toll the winter surge has taken on so many families across the county."

New daily reported cases have been steadily falling since the beginning of Feb. 2021, although experts warn that the numbers remain too high to let our guard down yet.