U.S. could see 1 million cases per day, warns departing NIH director Francis Collins

According to scientists' most pessimistic projections, the U.S. could reach over a half-million average daily infections by the end of January — more than double last winter's peak.

The outgoing director fears a worse situation.

"Even if it has a somewhat lower risk of severity, we could be having a million cases a day if we're not really attentive to all of those mitigation strategies," he said.

Even the most optimistic scenarios could mean a strain on hospitals in many regions that are already squeezed by the delta surge. ...

Collins notes that the Biden administration has at least 60 emergency response teams on standby to support health care systems in the event of a crush of infections.