(WASHINGTON D.C.) — Five days after the U.S. surpassed 15 million COVID-19 cases on December 8, the nation’s total infected rate added another million.

This comes as the nation is less than 1,000 deaths away from the death toll reaching over 300,000 fatalities.

As of Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S.’s total number of confirmed infections crossed 16,225,124 cases.  

Friday marked a new record, the single-day new case total with 231,775 new cases — which is more than the entire population of Richmond, Virginia.   Richmond’s population is 230,436 — according to the 2019 estimate.

U.S. deaths stand at 299,168 — a number that is higher than the entire population of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Greensboro’s population stands at 296,710 and the city with the next highest population is Pittsburgh, PA — at 300,286.

At this current pace, the U.S. is suffering roughly 2,400 deaths a day — which is nearly 100 Americans dead every hour.  Last week, the nation reported 16,653 deaths.

Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, refuted President Donald Trump’s claims on Sunday that the FDA could have approved the vaccine from Pfizer sooner.

President Donald Trump said on Fox News Saturday, that the FDA could have had authorization accomplished “last week.”

Hahn shot down the notion Sunday when speaking to ABC’s This Week.

“We do not feel that this could have been out a week earlier,” he said on Sunday. “We went through our process. We promised the American people that we would do a thorough review of the application and that’s what we did. We followed our process.”