U.S. 7-day COVID-19 case average has doubled in two weeks

WASHINGTON — From a range of 11,000 to 13,000 cases two weeks ago, the seven day average of daily infections in the United States has more than doubled to 28,315 on Thursday.

With 28,412 additional cases reporting, the national total has increased to 33,975,711, as per the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

In contrast to infection rate, COVID-19 casualties in the U.S. continue to remain at a controlled rate.

With an additional 283 deaths reporting in the last 24 hours, the total COVID-19 death toll in the country reached 608,400.

Florida reported the highest number of cases — 7,011 — and COVID-19-related deaths — 45 — on Thursday.

A total of 29,341,913 people have so far recovered from the disease in the country.

A total of 336,054,953 vaccine doses have been administered so far nationally. 185,135,757 people have received at least one dose.

A total of 160.4 million people, or 48.3% of the U.S. population, are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A total of 79.3% of people above 65 have received both vaccine doses. At a news conference Thursday, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy revealed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation has led people to resist wearing masks in high-risk settings. “It’s led them to turn down proven treatments and to choose not to get vaccinated. This has led to avoidable illnesses and death. Simply put, health (mis)information has cost us lives,” he told reporters.

Murthy said that in this context, he issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on the dangers of health misinformation. Surgeon General Advisories are reserved for urgent public health threats.