US Records Nearly Half Million New COVID-19 Cases in 5 Days

Nearly half a million people in the United States have tested positive to the novel coronavirus in the last five days, coinciding with the launch of the 2020 US presidential elections between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

On Saturday, the US reported a new record of COVID-19 cases, reaching 126,400, and 1,140 deaths, as medical experts warn that the outbreak is worsening across the country and could lead to a devastating winter.

The US is the worst affected nation worldwide by COVID-19, with more than 9.7 million confirmed cases and more than 236,000 deaths of the virus in the US.

Another 106,000 could lose their lives in the next two months, according to projections from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

It’s not just cases that are rising; 19 states reported a record-high number of people currently hospitalized with Covid-19, based on a seven-day average, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project, which is run by journalists at The Atlantic.

Moreover, more than 130,000 lives could be saved in the U.S. if most Americans chose to wear masks, according to Dr. Francis Collins, the Health National Institutes director.

Later, Sky News reported that scientists from the University of Minnesota’s Infectious Diseases Research Center suggested that the Coronavirus epidemic would last for at least two years, and they expected that the virus could not be contained before a third of the world’s population became immunized against infection.