Dr Fauci warns of COVID spike in US

The US must make an abrupt change in public health practices as it could surpass 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day and rising deaths in the coming weeks, the country's top infectious disease expert has warned Americans just days ahead of the presidential election.The warning from Dr Anthony Fauci came as President Donald Trump, himself a COVID-19 survivor, has been downplaying the rising cases in a number of states and dangerously holding huge rallies with few of his supporters wearing masks and no social distancing.Fauci told The Washington Post that the nation is "in for a whole lot of hurt."

He spoke as the US set a new daily record on Friday with more than new 98,000 cases. As hospitalisations increase, deaths are also ticking up, with more than 1,000 reported on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing the total to over 230,000 since the start of the pandemic, the report said."All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly," he told the Post.  According to Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker, the US has reported over 9,127,000 confirmed cases and reported more than 230,000 deaths.