So far, the worst of the epidemic in the United States occurred in early January, when the number of daily confirmed cases exceeded 300,000 and the number of deaths exceeded 4,000. As the number of vaccinations increased, the outbreak slowly improved, and the number of new confirmed cases and deaths steadily declined from mid-March to fewer than 10,000 and fewer than 200 deaths at the peak. However, as the mutant Novel Coronavirus Delta strain began to spread in early July, the number of confirmed cases and deaths rose sharply again, and the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects that the number of confirmed cases will soon exceed 200,000.