Coronavirus tally: U.S. COVID seven-day average case tally remains below Christmas Eve peak

The seven-day average of new U.S. COVID cases stood at 60,610 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s up 4% from two weeks ago and below the recent peak of 70,508 on Christmas Eve. The daily average for hospitalizations was up 10% at 45,842. The average for deaths was 564, up 61% from two weeks ago. The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 666.3 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.7 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world with 101.6 million cases and 1,099,617 fatalities.