Daily Covid-19 Cases Will Hit Six Digits Soon, Expert Says

This is how covid-19 alters the sense of smell 2:20

(CNN) - The

United States has just marked a heartbreaking milestone: It recorded its highest number of covid-19 infections in a day on Friday with more than 83,000, indicating that it is more than 6,000 than the previous record for the country set in July.

And as the increase continues into the fall, the daily numbers will worsen, experts warn.

"We will easily hit six-digit numbers in terms of the number of cases," Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN late Friday.

"And deaths are going to skyrocket in the next three to four weeks, generally following new cases in about two to three weeks."

This comes as the nation's seven-day average of new daily cases topped 63,000 on Friday, an 84% increase since the average began to rebound in mid-September, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

• MORE: Coronavirus pandemic is causing & # 8216; unacceptable & # 8217; shortages;

  in U.S. drug supplies, according to a report

Health officials say the caps come after the reopening of schools and universities in the US and have been driven largely by small gatherings, often family events, increasingly held indoors, where the virus is more likely to spread.

advertising

In Maryland, the governor said this week that family gatherings were the top source of transmission in the state, followed by house parties.

In North Carolina, health officials reported their highest daily case count on Friday and said they continue to see groups "of social and religious gatherings."

Unlike many European countries that also experience spikes, the US never dropped its daily baseline of cases much, meaning the backlog of cases could be worse, experts say.

And that's before several popular holidays, when health officials worry that more Americans may let their guard down and choose to visit family and friends and generate more waves.

In North Dakota, with the nation's highest per capita new case rate, Governor Doug Burgum called for a "Thanksgiving challenge," urging residents to follow mitigation guidelines such as masks and social distancing to reduce the numbers before the holiday.

"It would be great to share with all of you on Thanksgiving that our numbers go down as we approach the holiday period," he said Friday.

«That we have more and more hospital capacity.

That our schools have remained open, that our businesses are open during the Christmas season.

34 states report increased cases

The president has said in recent days that the country is just around the corner when it comes to the pandemic.

But the alarming patterns across the country tell a different story.

At least 34 states reported more new cases of COVID-19 in the past week than the week before, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

In Georgia, health officials on Friday reported their highest number of cases in a day since early September.

Health officials in Ohio reported a record new daily cases for the third day in a row, and in Oklahoma, officials reported more than 1,000 new infections for the fourth day in a row.

And more than 41,000 covid-19 patients were in U.S. hospitals on Friday, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

In Illinois, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients increased by at least 17% over the past week, the governor said Friday.

Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike made an emotional appeal to residents about the importance of covering their faces.

• LOOK: Questions from the audience about coronavirus: can we be more susceptible to infections now that we are not so exposed to viruses and bacteria?

“As we see the numbers rise in hospitals, people are bringing in more beds, trying to prepare for the covid units again.

And these staff who went through all that pain to try to save as many people as they can, see that history repeats itself, "he said.

"We don't have a vaccine yet, but we do have a mask, and we ask people to use it, and I don't know what else we can say."

In Tennessee, hospital officials said new cases in the greater Nashville area have risen 50% in the past two weeks, and hospitals in the area saw a 40% increase in patients during the same period.

And Colorado officials issued a new order limiting gatherings to 10 people from no more than two households in response to infections and escalation hospitalizations.

“We need meetings to be smaller and in fewer homes;

We ask everyone to 'shrink your bubble' to reduce the spread, "Colorado Department of Health and Environment Executive Director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said in a press release Friday.

'This is not a simulacrum'

Despite worrying trends, health officials maintain that basic public health measures can help turn things around: masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds and frequent hand washing.

"They sound very simple, but we don't do it uniformly, and that's one of the reasons we're seeing these surges," Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.

"We can control them without closing the country."

A new modeling study from the forecasting team at the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows that if 95% of Americans wore masks in public, more than 100,000 lives could be saved through February.

But despite the forecast and expert warnings, facial coverings remain a point of contention in the United States. Perhaps it is time for the country to mandate the use of masks, Fauci said.

"I think it would be a great idea if everyone did it uniformly," he said.

"If people don't wear masks, then maybe we should demand it," he said.

A prominent World Health Organization official on Friday also urged country leaders to "take immediate action to prevent further unnecessary deaths, the collapse of essential health services and the closure of schools."

"As I said in February and I repeat it today, this is not a drill," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.

Covid-19: the key days for contagion 2:27

Expert: vaccine may not arrive this year

While many experts and officials have worked to give hopeful estimates of when a COVID-19 vaccine will be available, that timeline remains uncertain.

The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, said Friday that while he is "cautiously optimistic" that the United States will have a licensed vaccine by the end of the year, he said that "it may not happen and it could take longer. ».

But Collins added that it is good news that the United States has more than one candidate vaccine in development.

"If you were betting everything on a vaccine, I would be much more concerned," he said.

His comments came on the same day that drugmakers AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson announced that they were ready to resume their trials of the COVID-19 vaccine, on hiatus in the US.

And when a vaccine is approved, experts have said it's crucial that enough Americans get it.

If only half the country is willing to get vaccinated, Collins warned, Covid-19 could linger for years.

"When I look at the attitudes that exist now about this vaccine and who would be interested in taking it, it's really worrying," Collins said at a National Press Club virtual event.

"I have spoken very optimistically about how we are likely to have a vaccine by the end of the year, but if only 50% of Americans are interested in taking it, we will never reach that point of immunity among the population where covid is going -19.

CNN's Alta Spells, Shelby Lin Erdman, Gisela Crespo, Naomi Thomas, and Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.

covid-19