US Coronavirus Cases Spike, Pushing Up Hospitalisations

From Dec 5, A 4-Fold Increase In Hospital Admissions Among Kids In NYC

The highly transmissibleOmicron variant of the coronavirus has overtaken Delta in the US, sending the daily caseloads soaring to levels higher than last year’s winter pandemic peak in parts of the Northeast and Midwest, among other places. Hospitalisations are starting to tick up, too, although not at the same rate as cases. It is unclear if they will continue to follow the rise in cases, especially given evidence in South Africa and Europe that Omicron may cause fewer severe cases of Covid.

On Friday, before holiday interruptions to data reporting began to affect the nation’s daily case totals, the seven-day national average of new daily cases surpassed 1,97,000, a 65% jump over the last 14 days, and hospitalisations reached a seven-day average of more than 70,000, an increase of 10%. Deaths also increased by 3% during that time, to a seven-day average of 1,345, according to a New York Times database. The national all-time high for average daily cases is 2,51,232, which was set in January during a post-holiday surge.