For the first time since mid-February, the U.S. is responsible for more than one-fifth of all COVID-19 cases reported worldwide, according to USA Today's analysis of data from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. confirmed more than 900,000 cases in one week, USA Today reported Aug. 15. This tally marks the highest total seen in the U.S. since the seven-day period ending Feb. 4.
As of Aug. 13, COVID-19 cases were increasing in 46 states, with Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Mississippi reporting record-high case counts last week.
"This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peeked out," National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, told Fox News Sunday Aug. 15. "So I will be surprised if we don't cross 200,000 cases a day in the next couple of weeks."
At present, the U.S. is averaging about 129,000 cases per day, a more than 700 percent increase from early July, according to Fox News Sunday.