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 The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has risen nearly 50% in
the past week and now exceeds 100,000, according to data collected
by Reuters, marking the first time that threshold has been reached
in a year.
The latest surge, which forced waves of cancellations from
commercial airlines flights to Broadway shows in recent weeks, was
disrupting plans for public schools to welcome students back from
winter vacation.
Chicago Public Schools, the nation's third-largest school district,
said it would cancel classes on Wednesday after the teachers' union
voted in favor of a return to remote learning.
In Los Angeles County, the presiding judge of one of the country's
largest court systems ordered a two-week postponement of criminal
trials due to the latest wave of infections.
Nationally, the United States https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR has seen a
daily average of 486,000 new cases over the past week, a rate that
has doubled in seven days and far outstrips that of any other
country https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi.
The 978,856 new infections documented on Monday included some cases
tallied on Saturday and Sunday, when many states do not report.
The average number of U.S. COVID-19 deaths has remained fairly
steady throughout December and into early January at about 1,300 a
day, according to a Reuters tally, though deaths typically lag
behind case numbers and hospitalizations.
Omicron appears to be far more easily transmitted than previous
iterations of the virus. The new variant was estimated to account
for 95.4% of cases identified in the United States as of Jan. 1, the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on
Tuesday.
The World Health Organization said
https://www.reuters.com/business/
healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-sees-more-evidence-that-omicron-affects-upper-respiratory-tract-2022-01-04that
evidence suggested Omicron is causing less severe illness.
Nevertheless, public health officials have warned that the sheer
volume of Omicron cases threatens to overwhelm hospitals, some of
which are already struggling to handle COVID-19 patients, primarily
among the unvaccinated.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a 30-day state of emergency
on Tuesday and mobilized 1,000 National Guard members to pandemic
response operations as COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state hit a
record high of more than 3,000, up more than five-fold in seven
weeks, Hogan said.
"The truth is that the next four to six weeks will be the most
challenging time of the entire pandemic," Hogan told reporters. He
said projections show COVID hospitalizations could surpass 5,000,
far higher than Maryland's previous peak of 1,952 last year.
Delaware, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia and Washington, D.C., have also
reported record numbers of hospitalized COVID patients in recent
days.
'UNLIKE ANYTHING WE'VE SEEN'
In Kentucky, where Tuesday's total of 6,915 new cases was the
highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic, Governor Andy
Beshear urged residents to get vaccinated and wear masks.
"Omicron is causing a surge unlike anything we've seen and at this
rate our hospitals will fill up," he wrote on Twitter.
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 The unrelenting surge has
prompted more than 3,200 schools to close this
week, according to the website Burbio, which
tracks school disruptions. Schools that have
remained open are facing staff shortages and
renewed concerns about virus spread.
In Boston, where more than 54,000 students returned to class on
Tuesday following the holiday, Superintendent of Schools Brenda
Cassellius told reporters there were 1,000 staff members out,
including 461 teachers and 52 bus drivers.
"It does make for a difficult start to the day," she said.
Rank-and-file members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted 73% in
favor of working remotely, after the union's House of Delegates
voted 88% in favor of the resolution.
Earlier, the union urged its members to stay out of the classroom
and work remotely through Jan. 18, or until the city reaches minimum
health-safety thresholds set last year as a condition for in-person
learning, whichever comes first. The union has
called for more rigorous COVID-19 safety protocols, including
school-based coronavirus testing and mandatory student vaccinations.
District chief executive officer Pedro Martinez said the school
system would agree to further COVID-19 safety measures. But he said
classes for Chicago's 340,000 students would be canceled on
Wednesday if teachers voted against reporting to work, with no
remote instruction being made immediately available.
The union has cited data showing that vaccination rates remained
especially low among minority students - with just 7% of Black
youngsters and 13% of Latino children aged 5-11 fully inoculated.
But school officials said hospitalization rates of
children are low and that distance learning has hit minority and
poor students particularly hard, as many depend on school-based
meals and have working parents with fewer childcare options.
Dr Allison Arwady, Chicago's Public Health Commissioner, joined
district officials and Mayor Lori Lightfoot in pressing to keep
classrooms open. Arwady cited data showing Chicago averaging just
seven pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations a day out of 550,000
children who live in the city.
More than 325,000 COVID-19 cases among children were reported in the
United States for the week ending Dec. 30, according to the American
Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association, a new
high and almost double the count from the previous two weeks.
(Reporting by Lisa Shumaker in Chicago and Joseph Ax in New York;
Additional reporting by Maria Caspani, Steve Gorman, Ankur Banerjee
nd Anirudh Saligrama; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Bill Berkrot)
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