Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus are swiftly ballooning across the United States, and President Trump's former Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert says time is running out to control the spread.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who is overseeing one of the country's largest clusters, said "if you do the math" there could be 64,000 cases of COVID-19 in the Evergreen State by May, while New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the positive cases in the city are "coming in so intensely now" that public officials are struggling to keep up with them. He said he wasn't in a position to give the media a "detailed case breakdown" because of the rapidly changing number.

That seems to lend credence to Bossert's claim Tuesday that hospitals could soon be overwhelmed.

Bossert tells NBC News just now: "We are 10 days from our hospitals getting creamed." https://t.co/qvqQSvGKXW — Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) March 10, 2020

Bossert, who in his old position coordinated the U.S. response to global pandemics (he was not replaced by Trump, who made cuts to national security), wrote an op-ed published Monday by The Washington Post saying the U.S. should take notes from places like Hong Kong and Singapore, which were able to level off their infection rate thanks to tougher measures early on. Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell