Monday 30 / December / 2024
WASHINGTON: The United States reported an all-time high single-day COVID-19 case count of nearly 200,000 on Friday, as the total number of confirmed cases topped over 13 million.
A total of 194,317 new cases and 1,374 deaths were reported across the nation on Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
It took only six days for the country to add another 1 million new infections.
Friday also marked the 20th consecutive day that daily case increase in the United States surpassed 100,000.
Currently there are nearly 90,000 COVID-19 patients hospitalized across the United States, according to the tracking project.
"Not many weeks ago we were worried about the potential of 100,000 new cases in a day. Now we're about to get to 100,000 Americans in the hospital with COVID," tweeted Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research.
The country has so far recorded more than 4 million official COVID-19 cases in November, representing roughly 30 percent of the country's case total, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Researchers have cautioned that the total number probably is a vast undercount, partly because of limited test availability, especially early in the pandemic.
Public health officials have urged Americans to celebrate this year's Thanksgiving only with members of the same household, or at least gather outdoors, to avoid further virus spread.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new guidance last Friday urging Americans to stay home and not travel for Thanksgiving. Yet, millions of Americans are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Travel industry groups expect Sunday, as everyone heads home from their holiday destinations, to be the busiest day of travel since the pandemic began.
Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said he worries that crowds at airports are going to get the country into "even more trouble" than it is in right now.
He added that new COVID-19 infections contracted over the Thanksgiving holiday will not become evident until weeks later, making it "very difficult" as the virus could spiral out of control heading into the December holiday season.
As Thanksgiving week draws to an end, more experts are warning the pandemic will likely get much worse in the coming weeks before a possible vaccine could offer some relief.
The United States has recorded more than 13.22 million cases with over 265,900 related deaths as of Saturday afternoon, according to the real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
