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U.S. Covid Cases Top One Million After Holiday Backlog
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© Jeff Dean/Associated Press Powered by Microsoft StartMore than one million new Covid-19 infections were reported in the U.S. as global health officials scrambled to increase measures to counter the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
The U.S. reported a record 1.08 million Covid-19 infections on Monday as most states worked to clear backlogs after pausing during the New Year’s holiday. The reports pushed the seven-day average of daily reported infections to 480,273, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That level is nearly double the peak reached at the height of last winter’s case surge.
Hospitalizations for confirmed or suspected Covid-19 cases reached a seven-day average of 97,855 on Monday, according to data posted by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. That is up 41% in the past two weeks but below both the pandemic peak of 137,510 on Jan. 10, 2021, and the smaller peak of 102,967 on Sept. 4, 2021, during the Delta-variant surge. While Covid-19 tests remain in short supply in much of the U.S., testing was less robust last year, complicating comparisons between pandemic surges.
The number of cases reported for the U.S. Monday didn’t include data from six states, which either don’t issue daily reports or hadn’t resumed after their holiday blackout. Georgia, on its state dashboard, said it didn’t report on Monday because of “a large amount of data overwhelming the system.”
The U.S. seven-day average of daily reported Covid-19 deaths was 1,236 on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins data. That average has remained relatively unchanged in recent weeks. Reports of deaths tend to lag three to five weeks behind cases, so many deaths that result from the Omicron surge will likely not appear in reports until later in January.
Omicron caused some 95% of U.S. Covid-19 infections in the week through Jan. 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated. The CDC estimated that Omicron was responsible for 77% of infections in the week through Dec. 25 and 38% of infections in the week through Dec. 18. The CDC has revised the estimates in recent weeks as the variant has spread.
In France, which has been hit by a recent rise in infections, lawmakers delayed a vote on a bill that would make proof of vaccination the only way to enter cafes, restaurants and other public places. Currently people can show a negative test as an alternative. The parliament’s foot-dragging is undermining President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to have the measure in place by Jan. 15.
“We saw yesterday a kind of an alliance of irresponsibility appear” across the political spectrum, said government spokesman Gabriel Attal.
Italy has seen infections more than double compared with the previous week. Hospitalizations, including in intensive-care units, are rising as a result, although they are still considered manageable in most parts of the country. Doctors say the most of patients are unvaccinated.
Rome is considering making proof of vaccination or recovery from the virus a condition for entering all workplaces. More than five million Italians over 12 years old are still unvaccinated, most of them working age.
In Spain, more than a million new infections were detected from Dec. 13 until the end of the year, according to the Spanish health ministry.
Video: New Australian COVID-19 cases dip, but hospitalisations rise (Reuters)
In Belgium, Covid-19 cases soared as the Omicron variant spread. Case numbers rose 69% over the seven days through Dec. 29, the most recent period for which data was available. But in a hopeful sign, hospitalizations rose only 15% over the same period and deaths were down 34%.
Australia passed 500,000 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic amid a worsening Omicron outbreak, while infections have begun to accelerate in India and parts of Southeast Asia that had appeared to be getting on top of the virus in recent months.
The top health official in Australia’s Queensland state said people with the Omicron strain were on average infecting as many as 10 others, raising concerns that the country’s medical system could soon be overwhelmed. Omicron “has completely changed all the planning,” said John Gerrard, Queensland’s chief health officer.
Australia recorded nearly 48,000 cases on Tuesday, a new daily record. The country relaxed restrictions on international travel in November and has dialed back other measures, including those concerning the movement of unvaccinated people.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s push to shift the burden of testing from dedicated centers to at-home testing kits hasn’t eased pressure on the healthcare system. The government has resisted calls to distribute at-home tests free of charge, encouraging supermarkets and pharmacies to order more. Long lines remain outside testing centers and supermarket and pharmacy shelves have been emptied of kits.
Mr. Morrison said hospital data could be inflated by Covid-19-positive patients admitted for other ailments. In New South Wales state, home to Sydney, health officials said Tuesday that 1,344 Covid-19 patients were in hospitals, up from 557 a week earlier.
Australia offers lessons for other countries in Asia that are weighing their response to Covid-19 outbreaks against the economic damage that tightening restrictions can inflict. Roughly 77% of Australia’s population has had two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data, a pandemic research project at the University of Oxford.
India reported 37,379 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, the highest level of daily infections in nearly four months. The South Asian nation has logged 1,892 cases of the Omicron variant so far, with the highest numbers found in the state of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
On Monday, Satyendar Jain, the health minister of Delhi, said that more than 81% of Covid-19 samples that underwent genomic sequencing in the past two days were the Omicron variant.
“Delta doesn’t spread this fast,” said Dr. G.C. Khilnani, former head of pulmonary medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. ”It looks like the rising cases are being driven by Omicron. We need to watch the rate of hospitalizations now, as even a small percentage can be huge for a country like India.”
Nearly 44% of India’s more than 1.3 billion people have received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data.
Cities and states across the country have imposed new restrictions on businesses and movement. The Delhi government imposed a weekend curfew on Tuesday.
Omicron has also breached Taiwan’s strict Covid-19 defenses. Health authorities on the self-governing island reported Tuesday that a member of the cleaning staff at the Taoyuan International Airport, just outside the capital of Taipei, was confirmed to have been infected by the fast-spreading variant.
That news came a day after Taiwanese Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said two Omicron cases identified late last month as imported were reclassified as locally transmitted after genome sequencing linked them to another infected traveler at a quarantine hotel.
Write to Anthony DeBarros at Anthony.Debarros@wsj.com, Rhiannon Hoyle at rhiannon.hoyle@wsj.com and Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com
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