(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — With over 11.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University, hospitals across the nation are already grappling with a surge of new patients.  It was confirmed on Monday that nearly 70,000 Americans are now hospitalized due to the pandemic.

The number is a 23 percent increase from last week, which is now straining the already limited number of available intensive care unit (ICU) beds across the country.  In addition, hospitals are starting to prepare for a supply shortage.

Currently, the U.S. is averaging nearly 145,000 new COVID-19 cases a day — about 20,000 cases higher than the average projected on November 12.  

Cases have surged by 35 percent over the past seven days, as well — with the nation adding 1.2 million confirmed cases in the first 11 days of November.  That number is more than the total number of cases reported in the entire month of September.

With the nation averaging a million new cases a week now, that translates to roughly 101 Americans testing positive for the virus every 60 seconds.

In addition,  the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association confirms that over a million American children have contracted the virus — with 112,000 youths testing positive last week.  That is the largest increase since the onset of the pandemic.

Currently, children between the ages of infants through teenagers account for 11.5 percent of all COVID-19 positive cases in the nation.

Most troubling, howerver, is how the virus is impacting communities of color compared to non-Hispanic white individuals, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rate of Hispanic or Latino individuals seeing a hospitalization rate 4.2 times higher than non-Hispanic white individuals while Black individuals are hospitalized 3.9 times higher and American Indian or Alaska Native individuals 4.1 times higher than non-Hispanic white individuals.