The United States saw the highest Covid-19 daily death toll in more than six months Tuesday, with at least 1,707 fatalities, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The coronavirus is now killing at least one American every minute of the day, bringing the country to another horrific milestone on Wednesday: At least 250,029 people in the country have died of Covid-19 since the first death on February 29 in Washington state.
And it's only going to get worse, said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor at George Washington University School of Medicine.
"The horrible death count that we saw yesterday in the United States ... reflects the number of people who were being infected three weeks ago -- two to three weeks ago, because that's the lag," Reiner said Wednesday.
"On average, two to three weeks ago, we were seeing 70,000 to 80,000 (new) cases per day. Yesterday, there were about 155,000 (new) cases. So if you're alarmed at the 1,700 deaths today, two to three weeks from now, we're going to see 3,000 deaths a day."