As millions of Americans are traveling across the country this Thanksgiving, ignoring CDC guidance to stay home and not mix households, a medical expert warns daily COVID-19 deaths will soon double.
“It’s potentially the mother of all superspreader events,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, tells CNN Thursday.
The U.S. saw more than 181,000 new cases on Wednesday. Current daily deaths are now about 2000 per day. Dr. Reiner says they could come close to 4000 per day soon.
“I expect that the daily death rate will double in the next 10 days,” Reiner says. “We’ll be seeing close to 4,000 deaths a day.”
There’s already been a massive increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations over the past few weeks, fueling the potential for spread – and death.
“Every day since November 3,” CNN reports, “more than 100,000 new infections have been reported. Every day for more than two weeks, climbing hospitalizations hit another national record. And every single day, hundreds of Americans die of the virus, with both Tuesday and Wednesday recording a daily death toll of more than 2,100 deaths.”
The CDC projects another 60,000 deaths in less than four weeks, 321,000 total coronavirus deaths by December 19.