Dec. 1 (UPI) — The United States has added almost 158,000 new COVID-19 cases and is nearing 100,000 hospital admissions, according to new data Tuesday.
According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, there were 157,900 new cases and almost 2,200 coronavirus deaths on Monday. The seven-day average is 160,000, a decline of about 7%, according to health news website Stat.
For November, there was an average of 145,000 cases per day — a 136% rise over October’s average. A total of 4.4 million cases were added in November.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 13.55 million coronavirus cases and 268,200 deaths in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins.
According to the COVID Tracking Project, total hospitalizations nationwide have increased to a record 96,000. Almost 20% of those patients are in intensive care.
Texas leads in coronavirus-related hospitalizations. On Monday, the Dallas-Fort Worth area exceeded a threshold set by Gov. Greg Abbott to activate new restrictions.
Data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that 16% of all hospitalized patients in the North Texas region have COVID-19.
Under Abbott’s order, bars must close and businesses reduce capacity to 50% if the hospitalization rate exceeds 15% for seven days.
In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has warned that the state’s healthcare system could become overwhelmed.
Pritzker said none of the state’s regions will be downgraded to less-restrictive COVID-19 “tiers” in the near future, even if they succeed in meeting the requirements to do so.
“We are still very much in a precarious place, and we have got to take the time to evaluate any Thanksgiving effect before we make any premature adjustments,” he told reporters Monday.
Illinois has nearly 6,000 coronavirus patients in the hospital, the third-highest figure nationwide after Texas and California.
