Dr Fauci on Tuesday predicted that the US coronavirus crisis will worsen significantly next month 

He pinned his prediction in part on Americans' failure to heed experts' advice against travel and gatherings over Christmas

He declined to speculate how high the numbers will get but said: 'I hope we just don't get to that level of continually seeing over 800,000 [daily cases]' 

CDC projections suggest that the U.S. COVID-19 death toll will be well over 400,000 by January 20, when Trump will leave office 

As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 337,000 Americans had died of COVID-19 and more than 19.4 million people had been infected 

The US broke a new record for hospitalizations on Monday with 121,000 people in inpatient treatment

It marked 27th day in a row that hospitalizations have surpassed 100,000  

US air travel hit a pandemic-high on Sunday following Christmas, with at least 1.28 million Americans flying and another 1.1 million flew on Monday 

A Colorado man in his 20s became the first American confirmed to have a new, more contagious strain of 'super covid' which Dr Fauci predicted on Tuesday was already in the U.S.  

Officials think vaccines will work against the new strain but so far just over 2.1 million Americans have received their first doses - a fraction of the 20 million people officials promised to vaccinate by year-end 

Most doses are going to health care workers and nursing home residents, but some high profile leaders are getting early doses, including Vice President-elect Kamala Harris who got her first shot Tuesday