A top COVID-19 model predicts 150,000 more deaths in the U.S. in the next month as the country heads into what is anticipated to be the worst phase of the pandemic. Those spikes could be exacerbated during colder months as social events move to indoor settings where the virus can more easily spread. An all-time high of 125,379 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized Thursday, according to the Covid Tracking Project, a figure that fell only slightly to 125,057 Friday. The variant was first spotted in the U.K., leading it to impose strict restrictions across England to blunt the virus’s rapid spread. The mutant variant is not believed to be any more lethal than the strain that has already infected over 84 million people around the globe.
