Washington, July 25 The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that COVID-19 hospitalizations across the country grew at an alarming rate this week as the number of confirmed cases have crossed the 4.1 million mark.
The CDC reported 72,219 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, taking the overall number of cases to 4,109,603, while the death toll stood at 145,391.
"Hospitalization data was highly erratic this week, but what we did see is alarming," Xinhua news agency quoted a new report of the CDC's COVID Tracking Project as saying.
Deaths are rising three weeks behind cases, which suggests a very difficult few weeks ahead for the US, according to the report.
States and territories reported 5.5 million COVID-19 tests this week and discovered about 468,000 new cases, according to the report.
The week-over-week rise in newly discovered cases of COVID-19 is more modest this week than it has been for the past four weeks.
However, national testing growth has also slowed.
"The slowdown in new cases is probably in part a reflection of a slowdown in testing growth," the report said.
Now the number of hospitalized patients is approaching the peak that metric reached in mid-April, during the height of the Northeast outbreak.
Back then, New York and New Jersey alone represented 45 per cent of the hospitalizations.
Currently, Texas, Florida, and California are home to roughly half of the total number of COVID-19 patients, according to the report.
( With inputs from IANS )