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Nov. 9 (UPI) -- The United States surpassed a total of 10 million COVID-19 cases on Monday after a fifth straight day of more than 100,000 new infections. Updated data from Johns Hopkins University Monday shows about 106,000 new cases for Sunday and 450 deaths. The additions followed 128,400 cases on Saturday, the most ever for a single day in the United States since the start of the pandemic.
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More cases added on Monday pushed the total since the start of the pandemic over the 10 million mark. There have been 237,600 deaths in that time, according to Johns Hopkins.
Hospitalizations also continue to rise nationwide, as 1,600 more patients were admitted with serious illness, the COVID-19 Tracking Project reported. The figure pushed the U.S. total for hospitalizations to nearly 57,000 -- a 36% rise in two weeks.
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced his COVID-19 advisory task force, made up of public health experts and scientists.
The 13-member task force will be co-chaired by former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and Marcella Nunez-Smith, a public health expert at the Yale School of Medicine.
Drugmaker Pfizer also reported Monday that its vaccine candidate, according to early data from its final-stage human trials, is proving to be about 90% effective.
In Florida, the state on Sunday saw its highest number of cases since August and the greatest one-day rise in weeks.
All testing sites in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were closed until Tuesday due to Tropical Storm Eta.
In Illinois, officials reported at least 10,000 cases for the fourth straight day as the weekly positivity rate rose 3%.
"Spread the faith, not the virus," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker tweeted. "I know we'll get through this -- we just have to listen to the doctors. Let's go all in, Illinois."
More than 10,000 patients have died in Illinois.
In Wisconsin, hospital officials reported over the weekend that there are fewer than 200 intensive care beds available.
Leah Huibregtse, a spokesperson for Meriter Hospital in Madison, said staffing shortages have also become a critical issue.
"We've been pulling various levers to increase staffing options -- redeploying staff to different units, clinic providers helping at the hospital, looking for temporary agency staff, finding different ways to use volunteers and clinical students," she told The Capital Times.
"We've also paused and rescheduled some non-urgent, elective procedures."
