WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Americans not to travel in the holiday season as COVID-19 cases are surging across the country.

"You cannot be traveling during these holidays, as much as you want to," Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware during a virtual roundtable with a group of workers and small-business owners impacted by the pandemic.

The remarks were made several days after Thanksgiving, during which millions of Americans travelled, and some three weeks before Christmas.

"Christmas is going to be a lot harder," said Biden, adding that the country is "likely to lose another 250,000 people" in coming months "because people aren't paying attention."

Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also issued a stark warning on Wednesday.

"The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation," Redfield told an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The United States surpassed 100,000 coronavirus hospitalizations on Wednesday -- a record-high since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the COVID Tracking Project, as the health care system is being strained nearly to the breaking point in many states.

Nearly 14 million people in the country have caught the virus, with more than 273,000 deaths, as of Wednesday, according to tallies by Johns Hopkins University.