Coronavirus updates: US will soon have 'half a million' deaths, CDC says

There were 229,386 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Thursday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It's the 10th consecutive day that the country has reported more than 200,000 new cases. Thursday's tally is less than the country's all-time high of 302,506 newly confirmed infections on Jan. 2, Johns Hopkins data shows.

An additional 3,769 new deaths from COVID-19 were registered nationwide on Thursday, down from a peak of 4,462 fatalities logged on Jan. 12, according to Johns Hopkins data.

COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over the holidays followed by a potentially very large backlog.

A total of 23,314,238 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 388,705 have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country's cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up over the summer.

The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4, then reaching 200,000 on Nov. 27 before topping 300,000 on Jan. 2.

Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium will open as one of the largest mass vaccination sites in the country on Friday, officials announced.

The stadium will have the capacity to vaccinate 12,000 people a day, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said during his COVID-19 briefing Thursday.

Eligibility in Los Angeles County currently is limited to health care workers and seniors in nursing facilities.

The vaccination push comes as 1 in 3 people in LA County has been infected with COVID-19, Garcetti said. The county reported 17,323 new cases on Thursday.

"Our numbers remain very high. We remain one of the epicenters of this disease across the country," Garcetti said, though he added that there are signs that hospitalizations may be stabilizing.

ABC News' Cammeron Parrish contributed to this report.

Weeks after video emerged of mostly maskless partygoers at U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, county officials are cracking down.

Palm Beach County sent a letter this week, acquired by ABC News, warning the club and saying officials had met with representatives from the club about violations. Masks are mandatory in the county in all businesses or establishments, and anywhere in public social distancing cannot be maintained. The mandate is currently in place through Jan. 20 -- the same day the county's most famous resident will be exiting the White House.

"Thank you for meeting with us last week to discuss the concerning allegations regarding the Mar a Lago New Year's Eve party and lack of facial coverings being worn during evening activities," the county wrote in the letter addressed to Bernd Lembcke, executive vice president and managing director of Mar-a-Lago Club.

"We recount that you provided masks for all party goers who attended the party and that you provided additional masks for those that walked from the reception area to the main dining ballroom," the letter continued. "Although you provided these important steps, it seemed that based on the video evidence, there was a breakdown in enforcement of the mask orders that led to almost the entire room of guests being without masks during the later evening activities."

The letter also includes a confirmation of the violation, which is a first-time warning, that lays out a fine of up to $15,000 for each potential future violation.

Trump has consistently downplayed wearing masks over the course of the entire pandemic. Despite telling people to wear masks on occasion at official briefings, he also mocked others for wearing them, including President-elect Joe Biden. Many supporters have decried mandates and openly flouted rules, including maskless Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol last week.

ABC News' Will Gretsky contributed to this report.

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 continues to climb in the weeks following the end-of-year holidays. Fatalities from the disease nationwide are currently 25% higher than at any other time during the coronavirus pandemic, according to The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the U.S. outbreak.

"For scale, COVID-19 deaths reported this week exceed the CDC's estimate of 22K flu-related deaths during the entire 2019-2020 season," The COVID Tracking Project wrote on Twitter Thursday.

There were 3,915 deaths from COVID-19 registered nationwide on Thursday, well above a seven-day average that continues to rise. However, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were under the seven-day average on Thursday.

The one bit of good news highlighted by The COVID Tracking Project was that hospitalizations are leveling off. Still, there are 128,947 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States, much more than at any other time during the pandemic.

The COVID Tracking Project singled out Alabama, Arizona, California and Florida as particularly concerning locations right now. Arizona currently has the worst per-capita case numbers in the world, according to the project.