Washington, Jul 7 (IANS): America's top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci warned "the current state is really not good" due to the fresh spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country.

"We had been in a situation (where) we were averaging about 20,000 new cases a day," Xinhua news agency quoted Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as saying on Monday.

In a livestream with Director of the US National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, Fauci said a series of circumstances associated with various states and cities trying to open up, in the sense of getting back to some form of normality, has led to a situation where the country now has record-breaking cases.

He said the average age of people getting infected now is 15 years younger than it was a few months ago, but young people must understand they are not "in a vacuum".

"Innocently, they could infect someone who'd infect someone, and then all of a sudden someone's grandmother or grandfather, or aunt who's getting chemotherapy for breast cancer gets infected.

"You're part of the propagation of the pandemic so it's your responsibility to yourself, as well as to society, to avoid infection," Fauci added.

The US currently accounts for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 2,935,008 and 130,277, respectively, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The worst-hit states due to the fresh outbreak are California, Arizona, Texas and Florida.

Nearly two dozen states have paused their reopenings to combat the virus spread while others have taken extra measures to keep it out of their borders, said a CNN report.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut issued a travel advisory that requires people arriving from eight states with high coronavirus rates to quarantine for two weeks.