WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - America is celebrating a bleak and dangerous Thanksgiving holiday at a time more than 1,80,000 people are infected with coronavirus in a single day, and half of them in hospitals are fighting it.
Wednesday was also the day when the second highest number of COVID deaths was reported in the country.
With 2304 new deaths reporting in the last 24 hours, the country's total number of COVID-19 casualties increased to 262266, as per latest data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
The all-time high in single day deaths was recorded on April 15, when 2,603 people succumbed to the deadly virus.
Simultaneously, the intensity of coronavirus infections continues to aggravate across the country. 1,80,424 new cases in the last 24 hours took the national total to 12777754.
'90k people currently hospitalized with COVID-19, reaching a new all-time high for the 16th consecutive day,' COVID Tracking Project said in its latest data published on Twitter.
Close on the heels of the advice from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's to Americans to postpone travelling during Thanksgiving, experts expressed concerns that traditional Holiday celebrations and gatherings will lead to further surge in cases and casualties in a few weeks.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, said he expects the daily death rate to double in the next 10 days, close to 4,000.
The safest Thanksgiving this year includes only immediate household members, according to US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams.
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