Covid-19 deaths in the US climbed to another record high on Tuesday, as 4,327 people succumbed to the virus, The Hill reported citing Johns Hopkins University.
A New York Times tracker shows that deaths from Covid-19 are increasing at an alarming rate in the US. The seven-day average for daily deaths rose from about 2,600 per day to about 3,300 per day in the past week.
Hospitalizations are also at a record high, with over 131,000 people in hospitals with coronavirus, although signs of the increases slowing to some extent are being reported.
The situation could get worse, however, as a more contagious variant of the virus from the United Kingdom, which has already been detected in several states in the US, is expected to grow more prominent, according to The Hill.
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“This strain’s destiny is to become dominant here in the weeks ahead… If there ever were a time for the United States to pull out all the stops, this is it,” tweeted Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.
The Trump administration had announced steps on Tuesday to try to speed up the pace of vaccine distribution, including no longer holding back doses in reserve for second doses, and opening up the categories of people eligible for inoculations to those 65 and older and those with a pre-existing condition that puts them at high risk.
The overall number of infections in the US has reached 22,864,103, along with 381,513 deaths, according to the latest update by Johns Hopkins University.