In the past week (January 3 through 9), the U.S. reported about 1.7 million new cases, according to the COVID Tracking Project. This amounts to:
- An average of 240,000 new cases each day
- 447 total new cases for every 100,000 Americans
- 1 in 196 Americans getting diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past week
Already, in 2021, America has reported 2.1 million new COVID-19 cases. That’s 31 times the number of cases South Korea has reported in the entire pandemic. (Remember, the two nations had their first cases on the same day back in January 2020.)
Last week, America also saw:
- 131,000 people now hospitalized with COVID-19 (40 for every 100,000 people)
- 21,700 new COVID-19 deaths (7 for every 100,000 people)
The nation is now recording an average of 3,000 deaths every day, more than the number of lives lost on September 11, 2001. Yet cases are still rising—the COVID Tracking Project reported a record 310,000 on January 8—and hospitals continue to fill with patients.
Some of the cases and deaths added to national counts this week were likely reported late, making up for holiday dips over the winter holidays. (See previous issues for more on this phenomenon.) But many weren’t.
“Things will get worse as we get into January,” Dr. Fauci said in an interview with NPR this week.