Nov. 4 (UPI) -- The United States has added more than 100,000 new COVID-19 in a single day for the first time, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The tracking effort listed 103,087 new cases nationwide on Wednesday, the highest one-day total since the pandemic began. The second-highest was last Friday when 99,000 were added.
Over the past seven days, there have been more than 600,000 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Also Tuesday, there were about 1,100 new coronavirus-related deaths, the highest toll since Sept. 23.
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Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 9.39 million cases and 230,000 deaths in the United States.
Hospitalizations nationwide are on the rise and have surpassed 50,000 for the first time, including 10,000 in intensive care, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Admissions are up sharply in the Midwest, where 238 per million residents are hospitalized, the researchers said.
Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and New Mexico all reported record hospitalizations this week.
"If most Americans pulled together to do the right thing and wore a mask in public, this simple, selfless act would save more than 130,000 lives in the next few months alone," National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins wrote in a blog post.
Citing research that says only about half of Americans wear masks in public, Collins said if 95% of the U.S. population did so, the death toll would decline from a projected 510,000 to about 380,000 by March.
"I know that many people are tired of this message, and, unfortunately, mask-wearing has been tangled up in political perspectives at this time of deep divisions in our country. But think about it in the same way you think about putting on your seat belt -- a minor inconvenience that can save lives."
In North Dakota, which has the nation's highest rate per 100,000 residents, a Republican state legislative candidate who died from the disease in October won his election on Tuesday.
David Andahl won 35% of the vote to take one of the two seats in play for District 8 in the state House.
Andahl's mother told The Bismarck Tribune the 55-year-old cattle rancher and race car driver died due to complications after he was hospitalized.
His death came too late to remove his name from the ballot.
North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger said last month that if Andahl won, a vacancy would be considered to exist in the Legislature. How the vacancy might be filled is unknown, as the situation is unprecedented.
