The bad news isn't the United States posting a world record-high 125,000 new COVID-19 cases Friday. More frightening is the distinct possibility this horrendous toll might really be in the region of 500,000 new daily cases.
This frightening reality was held-out by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former chairman of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the wake of reports the new case toll in the U.S. exceeded 125,000 Friday. It was the third consecutive day that saw more than 100,000 new cases.
There were 102,831 new infections Wednesday -- the first time since the start of the pandemic the U.S. reported 100,000 new cases. Thursday saw 121,888 new infections, which was easily topped by Friday's 125,596 new coronavirus cases.
Besides the Friday new cases total, the U.S. incurred at least 1,137 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 54,000 Americans are hospitalized with the disease with 11,000 of these people are in intensive care.
"Remember 120,000 cases aren't 120,000 cases," said Gottlieb on CNBC Friday. "We're probably, at best, diagnosing 1 in 5 cases right now, maybe a little bit less than that, so this is at least half a million cases a day, probably more in terms of actual numbers of infection."
Gottlieb said the tragic situation in the U.S. will likely worsen without targeted interventions to reduce transmission in the hardest-hit states. "But we're not doing that right now," he said. "We're building up a lot of trouble for the future, and I think that this is going to explode in several weeks."
"You have to be really worried what January is going to look like, what December is going to look like right now given the way this is rising."
Thirteen states reported their highest numbers of new single-day cases on Thursday, namely: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia.
At least 38 states are reporting more new infections than the past week. Only Alabama and Tennessee are seeing their case counts decline.
In addition, 16 states reported record-high COVID-19 hospitalizations Friday, said the Covid Tracking Project.
Those states were identified as Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The U.S. has been hit by 9.6 million confirmed cases and 234,000 deaths since January 21, based on data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The country also had to deal with more than 657,000 cases in the last seven days.
Gottlieb said the biggest problem facing the U.S. right now is the massive number of infected Americans. He pointed out the old truth that more infections will ultimately lead to more hospitalizations.
"It's just a fact that, even if we get the death rates down and we manage people in the hospital better, and ... we're discharging people more easily, more quickly, we're infecting a lot more people, so eventually the health-care system is going to get pressed," said Gottlieb.
