U.S. Hits 5 Million Coronavirus Cases As Debate Lingers Over The Path Forward
NPRHits 5 Million Coronavirus Cases As Debate Lingers Over The Path Forward Enlarge this image toggle caption Wilfredo Lee/AP Wilfredo Lee/AP Updated at 3:10 p.m. ET The U.S. has hit 5 million confirmed coronavirus cases — just 17 days after crossing the 4 million mark — as lawmakers and states continue to grapple with how to chart a path back to normal as the pandemic continues to rage on. The last time the country surpassed a million new cases, many states had been seeing record surges of new infections, including California, Florida and Texas. A dire prognostication released last week by researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation — one of the leading modelers of the pandemic — projected COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. roughly doubling to 300,000 by December.