California's confirmed coronavirus cases have topped 409,000, surpassing New York for most in the nation.
John's Hopkins University data showed Wednesday that California now has about 1,200 more cases than New York.
However, New York's 72,302 deaths are by far the highest total in the country and nine times more than California's tally, and its rate of confirmed infections of about 2,100 per 100,000 people is twice California's rate.
California is by far the most populous U.S. state, at nearly 40 million people, while New York has about 19.5 million.
"We're doing all we can to make sure that we control the rate of spread, despite crossing 400,000 cases in California," state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday. "In the end I really expect and hope California is going to be the state that adapted the most, learned the most and prepared the best."
U.S. government data published Tuesday found that reported and confirmed coronavirus cases vastly underestimate the true number of infections, echoing results from a smaller study last month. The United States also has had consistent testing failures that experts say contribute to an undercount of the actual virus rate.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study says true COVID-19 rates were more than 10 times higher than reported cases in most U.S. regions from late March to early May. It is based on COVID-19 antibody tests performed on routine blood samples in 16,000 people in 10 U.S. regions.
