By nearly all measures it has been a horrible week, a horrible month (nine days in), and a horrible year. The US set pandemic records in all three metrics that measure the pandemic’s severity this week, recording a total of 1.4 million new cases and 15,966 deaths. Yesterday, states and territories reported 3,088 deaths from COVID-19—a record no one wanted to see—and the average number of deaths per day this week exceeded 2,000, surpassing the highest average we saw in the spring’s deadly first surge. More than 106,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19. If the patterns we’ve traced here since spring hold true, the worst is yet to come.