The novel coronavirus that apparently originated in Wuhan, China, is now ravaging the US with its deadly killing spree.

Recent statistics indicate that the pandemic has become the top killer in the United States this week, overtaking heart disease and cancer.

Creatives coronavirus

One death in every 30 seconds

While talking with CNN Anchor Alisyn Camerota, Neurosurgeon and Medical Correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta revealed that COVID-19 is emerging as the top killer of the nation, as the pandemic overtook the death toll inflicted by deadly diseases like heart disease and cancer. He also called the recent death figures in the US ''disheartening''.

"If you look at average - cardiac deaths, the cardiac disease still has been the number one killer in the United States, around 600,000, men and women alike, die of heart disease every year. What we know now, that this past week at least, COVID surpassed that weekly average of cardiac deaths in this country. So as things stand right now, COVID is the number one cause of death this week. Who knows how that's going to go," said Gupta.

Gupta revealed that heart diseases usually claim the lives of more than 10,000 people a week in the US, but COVID-19 had resulted in the deaths of at least 15,000 people in the country which clearly indicates that American woes will continue in the coming months too.

Coronavirus cases and deaths surging in US

Gupta also predicted that deaths associated with coronavirus in the United States will likely go up in the coming weeks. On December 03, 2921 deaths were reported in the US, followed by 2,742 and 2,251 deaths on December 04 and 05 respectively.

On December 04, the United States witnessed 2,37,372 COVID-19 positive cases, an all-time high since the outbreak of the pandemic in March. According to the latest statistics, there are more than 14.9 million positive coronavirus cases in the country, and the death toll has already crossed 2,87,000.

As coronavirus cases in the country started increasing drastically, the White House Task Force recently sent a report to all the states to adopt effective measures to contain the pandemic. In the meantime, a lockdown has been implemented in California from December 06 to January 04.

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