US had nearly 200,000 new Covid cases Sunday. We could have 500,000 a day soon, expert says
The US is now averaging 198,404 new Covid-19 cases each day, according to Sunday data from Johns Hopkins University. That’s 47% higher than a week ago and the highest such number since January 19.
“I think we’re going to see half a million cases a day — easy — sometime over the next week to 10 days,” CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Sunday.
About 71,000 Americans were hospitalized with Covid-19 as of Sunday, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.
And an average of 1,408 Americans died from Covid-19 each day during the week ending Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins. That’s a 17% increase from the prior week.
With the highly contagious Omicron variant, “We’re certainly going to continue to see a surge (in cases) for a while,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Monday.
Looking ahead to New Year’s Eve on Friday, small gatherings of fully vaccinated people will be safe, Fauci said. But he advised people to avoid large parties where they don’t know the vaccination status of all guests.
“When you are talking about a New Year’s Eve party where you have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of the vaccination, I would recommend strongly: Stay away from that this year,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“There will be other years to do that. But not this year.”
More children are getting hospitalized with Covid-19
Pediatric Covid-19 hospitalizations keep rising, and they’re nearing the record high set in early September.
For the week ending December 24, an average of 262 children were hospitalized with Covid-19 on any given day, according to data from the DHHS and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s almost a 35% jump from the previous week. The record daily average of child Covid-19 hospitalizations was 342 per day in late August and early September.
New York City enacts new vaccine mandate
“As we come home from holiday gatherings, it is as important as ever to take precautions to limit the spread of COVID-19 this season,” Hochul said in a statement. “The vaccine is the best tool we have to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe as we head into the new year.”
Children ages 5 to 11 in New York are now also required to show proof of at least one shot before being allowed into indoor dining, fitness or entertainment venues. And adults must show proof of two vaccinations for those areas.
“We need to take very bold action,” de Blasio said. “We’re seeing restrictions starting to come back. We’re seeing shutdowns,” he said. “We cannot let those restrictions come back. We cannot have shutdowns in New York.”
Health care workers get new isolation guidance — but not others
At Tufts Medical Center in Boston, the new CDC guidance was welcome news.
“We have, as of this morning, 115 staff members out ill with Covid who have tested positive,” Chief Operating Officer Diana Richardson said Monday.
“But some of them are not as acutely ill. In fact, some of them are asymptomatic completely — we have a very vaccinated population. So it will help us to bring those individuals back into the workforce.”
Holiday travelers are stranded as Omicron surges
The best way to protect against severe illness is to get vaccinated and boosted, Fauci said.
“Boosters are always good for any variant, but particularly for Omicron,” he said.
“If you are vaccinated and not yet boosted, and your time comes for getting boosted, please get boosted. It’s going to make all the difference to prevent you from getting severe disease.”
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid, Deidre McPhillips, Artemis Moshtaghian, Jacqueline Howard, Veronica Stracqualursi, Pete Muntean, Aaron Cooper, Wayne Sterling and Jill Martin contributed to this report.
