CHICAGO (AP) – More than a year after vaccines began, new cases of COVID-19 in the United States have soared to the highest level on record, with more than 265,000 cases a day on average, an increase largely driven by the omicron variant, which is highly contagious.
New daily cases have more than doubled in the past two weeks, eclipsing the old 250,000 mark, set in mid-January, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The new version of the virus has cast a shadow over Christmas and the New Year, forcing communities to cut back or suspend their holidays just weeks after it looked like Americans were going to enjoy almost normal holidays. Thousands of flights have been canceled due to staff shortages attributed to the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, said Wednesday that small gatherings at home between vaccinated and boosted family and friends don’t need to be canceled.
But “if your plans are to go to a New Years Eve party for 40 or 50 people with bells and whistles, and everyone hugging and kissing, and wishing each other a happy new year, I would highly recommend that this year we don’t,” he said.
The threat of the omicron variant and the desire to spend the holidays with friends and loved ones have prompted many Americans to get diagnostic tests for COVID-19.
Aravindh Shankar, 24, flew to San Jose, California, at Christmas from West Lafayette, Indiana, to be with her family. Although he felt fine, he decided to get tested on Wednesday to be safe, since he had been on a plane.
He and his family spent almost an entire day looking for an appointment to get tested before going to a site in a parking lot next to the San José airport.
“The truth is, it was surprisingly difficult,” Shankar said of finding proof. “Some people have it more difficult, sure.”
The outlook is bleak in other parts of the world, especially in Europe, and World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he is concerned that the omicron will combine with the delta variant to produce a “tsunami” of cases. That, he said, will put “immense pressure on exhausted healthcare workers and on healthcare systems that are on the brink of collapse.”
The number of Americans now in hospital with COVID-19 is hovering around 60,000, about half the number recorded in January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Although hospitalizations sometimes lag behind cases, current hospitalization figures may reflect both the protection afforded by the vaccine and the possibility that omicron is not getting as sick as previous versions.
Deaths from COVID-19 in the United States have risen in the past two weeks from an average of 1,200 a day to about 1,500.
Public health experts will monitor the numbers over the next week for clues about how effective vaccines are in keeping people from seriously ill, keeping people out of the hospital, and easing pressure on exhausted medical workers. said Bob Bednarczyk, professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory University.
CDC data already indicates that the unvaccinated are hospitalized at much higher rates than those who have been vaccinated, even if the effectiveness of the vaccines diminishes over time, he said.
Hospitalization numbers are highly unlikely to hit their previous peak again, said Amesh Adalja, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Vaccines and treatments developed since last year have helped slow the spread of the virus and have minimized the serious effects among people with postvaccine infections.
“It’s going to take some time for people to get used to the fact that cases don’t matter in the same way as in the past,” Adalja said. “We have a lot of defenses against that.”
But even with fewer people hospitalized compared to past waves, the virus can wreak havoc on hospitals and healthcare workers, he added.
“In a way, those hospitalizations are worse because they are all preventable,” he said.
Several European countries, including France, Greece, Britain and Spain, also reported a record number of cases this week.
The WHO reported that new COVID-19 cases worldwide rose 11% last week from the previous, with nearly 4.99 million recorded from December 20 to 26. However, the agency also noted a decline in cases in South Africa, where the omicron was first detected just over a month ago.
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The Associated Press reporter Terry Tang in San Jose, California contributed to this report.
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