U.S. Hits Highest Average Daily COVID Death Toll Since May

The seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. hit 1,156 on Sunday. The figure marked the largest average daily death count since May 25 when 1,158 were reported, according to Worldometer.

The country's COVID-19 death toll has reached 246,224 total as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The average daily death count rose on a sharper incline from late October, after declining from early August.

The U.S. has the seventh-highest number of deaths per capita (100,000 people) among the 20 countries currently worst affected by COVID-19 as of Sunday. America's current per capita death rate is higher than that of Iran, France, Germany and Italy, the former epicenter of the outbreak in Europe.

According to the latest report Sunday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), North Dakota recorded the country's most number of deaths per capita in the last seven days, followed by South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming and Wisconsin in the top five among all states.

By Thanksgiving, there may be 11,700 new fatalities, with the death toll projected to reach around 257,958 on November 26, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

The projected death count could be reached even with "95 percent mask usage in public in every location and mandates are reimposed for six weeks if daily deaths reach eight per million people," IHME said.

The number of confirmed cases in the country surpassed 11 million on Sunday. Current U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations reached a record 69,987 on Sunday, the highest level since the outbreak began, according to data compiled by The Atlantic's The COVID-19 Tracking Project.

The daily case count is projected to reach around 315,314 by Thanksgiving, more than double the latest daily case tally of around 133,000 reported Sunday, with "continued easing of social distancing mandates and mandates are not reimposed," according to the IHME.

The country's average daily case tally has been rising sharply since mid-October, after declining from late July and flattening out from late August, according to Worldometer.

The seven-day moving average of new infections increased in all but four states (Georgia, Connecticut, Hawaii and Rhode Island) in the two-week period from November 2 to 15.

The wider picture

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 54.4 million people since it was first reported in Wuhan, China.

Globally, more than 1.3 million have died while more than 35 million have recovered as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations reported from March to November.

The graphic below, produced by Statista, the spread of COVID-19 cases across the U.S.

The graphic below, also provided by Statista, the spread of COVID-19 cases across the world.