On Saturday, the United States broke yet another record of the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, as cases continue to rise.
Public health officials have warned people of a potentially worse outcome as the holiday season is just a couple of weeks away.
On Saturday, over 91,500 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, with nearly 18,000 in ICUs, according to NPR.
The COVID Tracking Project tweeted Sunday, “Our daily update is published. States and territories reported 1.7M tests, 152K cases, 91,635 current hospitalizations, and 1,202 deaths. 5 jurisdictions didn’t report today and 5 more reported fewer metrics than usual for a Saturday.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations have been increasing since October, showing no signs of respite. In fact, the number of hospitalizations has increased significantly over the past month.
With the increased number of hospitalizations, experts across the nations have been expressing concerns over a new wave of infections after millions of Americans failed to follow the guidelines and traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday, “We may see a surge upon a surge.”
“We don’t want to frighten people, but that’s just the reality,” he added. “We said that these things would happen as we got into the cold weather and as we began traveling, and they’ve happened.”
With the upcoming December holidays and more people traveling, “it’s going to happen again,” said Dr. Fauci, Director of NIAID. “We’re getting into colder weather and an even larger holiday season.”
ABC’s This Week tweeted Sunday, “NEW: We may see a surge upon a surge. We don’t want to frighten people but that’s just the reality,” Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @MarthaRaddatz, adding that he doesn’t expect a relaxation of restrictions or travel advisories for the Christmas season.”
The rising number of hospitalizations has reflected an overall surge in infections.
On Friday, the nation another tragic milestone, when over 200,000 daily cases were reported for the first time.
So far, the United States has reported 13 million confirmed cases and over 271,000 deaths. However, officials believe that the actual number is much higher than reported because many asymptomatic people never get reflected in the official data.
For now, the number of daily deaths is lower than at its peak this spring, when doctors had not yet figured out the most effective treatment for the novel coronavirus. However, “with daily deaths hitting 2,000 twice last week, they’re approaching the record of 2,700 set in the spring,” according to NPR.
Doctors fear that the nation will soon hit 3,000 deaths, which is equal to a September 11 attack every single day. The article was originally published in NPR.
