Record daily COVID deaths soar past 4,000 in US
While millions were focused on Wednesday's riot at the U.S. Capitol, and the aftermath, the nation's COVID-19 death toll soared to new heights.
Thursday, the third consecutive day of record U.S. deaths, was the deadliest so far, with 4,085 COVID-19 fatalities, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. had never before surpassed 4,000.
With a seven-day average of 2,758 deaths by Friday, at least 365,882 Americans have died from the virus, according to JHU, which equals 1 in every 905.
Daily infections showed no sign of letting up this week. Over the past seven days, the U.S. reported 1.5 million new infections, with an average 223,675 each day, three times the country's July peak, according to an ABC News analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project.
The nation's daily case count has not dipped below 100,000 infections in two months.
Cases are rising in every region of the country, with New Jersey currently having the highest average daily infections per 100,000 people over the last seven days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Infections, hospitalizations and deaths fueled by holiday gatherings and travel will likely continue for the next few weeks of January, Dr. Anthony Fauci told NPR on Thursday.
"Hopefully, if we really accelerate our public health measures during that period of time, we'll be able to blunt that acceleration," Fauci said. "But that's going to really require people concentrating very, very intensively on doing the kinds of public health measures that we talk about all the time. Now's not the time to pull back on this."
ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos and Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
What to know about the coronavirus:
- How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained
- What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms
- Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map
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