The United States on Saturday surpassed 12 million cases of the novel coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The grim milestone comes on the same day President Donald Trump refused to attend a G20 event focused on the coronavirus.
On Friday alone, more than 195,000 cases were reported in the country, the highest number of cases in a single day, bringing the total number of infections this month to 2.7 million.
The death toll from the pandemic also continues to rise with nearly 10,000 fatalities recorded in the past 7 days and about 2,000 on Friday, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.
The COVID Tracking Project also showed that the United States recorded its highest number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals on a given day: 82,178.
The death toll in the past one week is nearly double the weekly death toll of just a month ago.
With death toll increasing so rapidly, some cities are ordering mobile morgues to handle the excess deaths, while others reporting overwhelmed ICUs and exhausted staff.
Health experts are warning that things may get even worse before they get better.
More than a quarter of a million Americans have already died from COVID-19 and over 11 million have been infected.
As cases, hospitalizations and deaths rise, President Trump spends time playing golf, tweeting many election fraud lies and obstructing President-elect Joe Biden.
Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, members of the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Advisory Board and top officials from organizations representing Americans hospitals, doctors and nurses are now calling on President Trump to share critical COVID-19 data with the Biden’s transition team as soon as possible to save American lives.
On Tuesday, the CEOs of the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association urged the Trump administration to work closely with the Biden transition team on COVID-19.
The Trump administration continues to deny the President lost the November 3, 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden and is not cooperating with the Biden team.
The President-elect will be sworn into office on January 20, 2021, and he will be in charge of distributing the coronavirus vaccine and vaccinating Americans but the Trump administration is not cooperating with the Biden team.
U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. and German company BioNTech SE, on Friday, asked regulators in the United States to allow an emergency use of their COVID-19 vaccine.
If the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approves their request, both companies will start distributing their vaccine as early as next month to vulnerable populations, but it will take several other months for the general public to receive it.
For now, experts are recommending to use face masks, social distance and trace, isolate and treat those who contract the virus.
