The US record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — delta and omicron — have converged to disrupt holiday travel and gatherings, deplete hospital staffs and plunge the US into another long winter.
The seven-day average of US cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database. The milestone was marked after a year that has whipsawed Americans from a relaxation of rules in the spring to a delta-driven summer wave to another surge that accelerated with astonishing speed as omicron emerged after Thanksgiving.
The record came only a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced the number of days that infected Americans should remain isolated to five days from 10. The CDC changed course as omicron’s rapid spread has worsened a labour shortage, upending hospitality, medical and travel industries. The agency did not recommend rapid testing before people left isolation, and experts warned that omission risked seeding new cases and heaping even more pressure on already overburdened health systems.
The previous US daily cases record was set on January 11, when the seven-day average was 251,232.
Hospitalisations have been rising, averaging more than 71,000 a day, but remain far below peak levels. While deaths have also been increasing, the daily average of 1,243 is a fraction of the record 3,342 reported on January 26.
Nevertheless, omicron has a considerably easier time than delta infecting vaccinated people. The coming cascade of patients threatens to overwhelm hospitals just as health care workers themselves are increasingly infected.
A sizable number of patients remain infected with the deadlier delta variant. On Tuesday, the CDC reported that omicron cases made up a significantly lower percentage of the overall US caseload than was expected, at roughly 59 per cent. And for the week ending December 18, the agency revised down its estimate of 73 per cent to 23 per cent, meaning delta remained dominant until this week.
New York Times News Service
