In total, more than 368,000 people in the country have died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus since the pandemic first began early previous year, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which also tracks and publishes COVID-19 data.
San Francisco faces a surge in coronavirus cases.
Friday's rise in cases now means that 44 states have reported at least 500 COVID-19 cases per million people.
The day before, the USA had recorded a record of almost 4,000 deaths in 24 hours. That brings the country's toll to almost 80,000, the highest in Europe.
A total of 4,033 people died in connection with the disease within 24 hours, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The worst-hit state since the state of the pandemic is New Jersey, which had another spike on Friday, and has recorded 2,694 infections per million of population.
Doctors inject sisters Claudia Scott-Mighty (L), Althea Scott-Bonaparte, who are patient care directors, and Christine Scott, an ICU nurse, with their second shot of the Pfizer vaccine at NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, N.Y., on January 8, 2021. New Mexico is likewise expanding eligibility to the elderly as well as people with certain underlying medical conditions.
"States not only can, but SHOULD aggressively expand vaccinations to other phases if current supply exceeds demand in phase 1a", the surgeon general said on Twitter. Britain has ordered 10 million doses of the vaccine, although they are not expected to be delivered to the United Kingdom until spring.
"Today's numbers show how critically important a centralized effort and response is to defeating this virus", Gov. Andy Beshear said. "This virus does not take weekends off".
Nationwide, there have been more than 21.8million Americans infected with coronavirus since the start of the pandemic and 368,679 deaths.
"It's very hard to decide which one should I go see first: the patient who has chest pain or the patient whose oxygen level is dropping", she said.
At St. Joseph Hospital south of Los Angeles, nurses in the COVID-19 ward describe being overwhelmed as the death toll mounts. "We're probably two weeks behind L.A.in terms of our situation", Will Humble, head of the Arizona Public Health Association, told the Associated Press. "And that's pretty much the norm", said Caroline Brandenburger.
"They fight every day, and they struggle to breathe every day even with tons of oxygen". And then you just see them die.
More than 8,000 of those are hospitalized in Los Angeles County, where the emergency medical system is under a huge strain, the health department said. The 439-bed hospital normally averages 350 patients, but that is now up to 450.
Since December 31, one in every 111 Arizonans has been diagnosed with the virus.
