We've hit 200,000 COVID-19 deaths in 6 months. What will the next 6 months look like?

It's been six months since the World Health Organization first declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. Since then, over 30 million people worldwide have been infected, and we're rapidly approaching 1 million global deaths.

The U.S. is among the world's most-affected countries, now hitting a sobering milestone: 200,000 American lives lost to COVID-19.

"This is our worst global pandemic in more than a century. And it is incredibly distressing to see the consequences. It's heartbreaking to see the ones who have been lost, the families who are grieving, other people whose livelihood has been incredibly disrupted by the economic consequences," director of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, told ABC News' Bob Woodruff.

Unfortunately, experts say things could get worse before they get better.

"I do think we're going to see deaths continue to increase, we'll probably expect to see another 100,000 milestone in the coming months. But I think because we've learned so much, the hope is that we'll be able to react more quickly than we were at the beginning stages of the pandemic," said John Brownstein, Ph.D., ABC News contributor and epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital.