Washington, Oct 27 In a grim development, the US registered more than 80,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past weekend, leading to fears and concerns of a critical resurgence of the pandemic across the country, which is currently the worst-affected in the world.
In its latest update on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the daily confirmed case count topped 83,851 and 82,929 on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, setting the highest record since the outbreak was first reported earlier this year, reports Xinhua news agency.
The even-day average case count has been on a rise over the past week, standing at nearly 70,000, CDC data revealed.
Many of the states with the fastest growing outbreaks are those in the Midwest and West, which did not report many cases earlier in the pandemic.
As daily new cases skyrocket, hospitalizations are also increasing, and deaths, which lag furthest behind those other indicators, are beginning to spike.
The daily death count hit nearly 1,000 over the weekend, with an average count of about 800 per day, CDC data show.
The country is testing more people than ever, according to data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project.
However, more testing cannot account for the rise in cases, health officials have said, because the percentage of tests coming back positive has increased as well.
Amid the resurgence, experts have warned that colder temperature would drive more people indoor and may cause even more infections.
"We are likely to see a very dense epidemic," former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday.
"I think we are right now at the cusp of what is going to be exponential spread in parts of the country."
As of Monday, the US has reported a total of 8,700,053 and 225,696.
The two tallies are currently the highest in the world.
( With inputs from IANS )
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