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WASHINGTON, July 18 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 72,045 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, setting a fresh single-day case record since the outbreak of the pandemic.

A total of 926 new deaths were reported by the CDC on Friday.

Hospitalization rates, which typically lag behind illness indicators, showed an increasing trend this week, according to a weekly report of the CDC.

A total of 37,052 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-associated hospitalizations were reported between March 1 and July 11, according to the CDC.

The highest rate of hospitalization was among adults aged 65, followed by adults aged 50 to 64 years and adults aged 18 to 49 years.

Among the 9,736 hospitalized adults with information on underlying medical conditions, 90.9 percent had at least one reported underlying medical condition, with the most commonly reported were hypertension, obesity, chronic metabolic disease and cardiovascular disease, said the CDC.

Among the 199 hospitalized children with underlying conditions, 51.3 percent had at least one reported underlying medical condition, with the most commonly reported were obesity, asthma and neurologic conditions.

Mortality attributed to COVID-19 decreased compared to last week but was above the epidemic threshold and would likely increase as additional death certificates were processed, according to the CDC.

A total of 47,313,367 tests had been reported by the CDC as of Friday, with 4,370,863 tested positive, contributing to a positive rate of 9 percent.

Nearly 3.68 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States with the fatalities surpassing 139,700 as of Saturday afternoon, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The United States is approaching half a million new COVID-19 cases each week, according to a report of The COVID Tracking Project released earlier this week.