The current spike in COVID-19 cases in the United States saw the country exceed 50,000 new cases on from Wednesday to Friday to confirm fears the dreaded "Second Wave" might now be afoot.
The new numbers came to 58,539 on Friday, 56,137 on Thursday and 52,635 on Wednesday. There were 42,618 cases on Tuesday and 42,359 cases Monday based on a compilation of data from Google.
The number of new cases Friday is the highest number reported in a single day since August 14 when 64,601 new cases were tallied. The last time there were three straight days of more than 50,000 cases was in mid-August at the height of the First Wave of infections. America's daily case count average now in excess of 46,000 has ballooned by 12% since the previous week.
New cases have risen in 33 states across the South, East and Midwest. Cases continue to jump in the nation's Great Plains, with Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming hitting record highs for average new cases. Only Maine and Nebraska reported a drop in new cases out of the country's 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Local health authorities are sounding the alarm about serious trends in new infections and deaths. At least 22 states reported more than 1,000 new cases on Thursday. The dangerous jump in new cases across the country has emergency physicians saying this might be the start of the "dreaded second wave."
"We are all seeing increasing numbers of Covid-19 patients who are coming into our ERs, who are getting really sick, requiring hospitalization and even intensive care," said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and Brown University associate professor, on CNN.
"We are all deeply afraid that this is the beginning of that dreaded second wave."
The death toll is also spiking and remained close to 1,000 daily last week. There were 915 deaths Friday, 928 on Thursday and 994 on Wednesday. There were only 429 deaths on Monday, meaning deaths jumped 113 percent from Monday to Friday and 132 percent from Monday to Wednesday. On the other hand, Johns Hopkins said there were 990 deaths Friday.
The influential epidemiological models from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington predicts the death toll could almost double to about 400,000 by February 2021 from the current 213,037, based on data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The IHME statistical model also projects daily deaths in the US peaking at some 2,300 in mid-January. Its latest forecast foresees 394,693 coronavirus deaths by February 1, 2021.
