The United States logged a seven-day average coronavirus case count of 168,981 on Wednesday, amid a nationwide spike driven partly by the omicron variant, Washington Post figures show. That surpassed a summer peak average of 165,187 infections Sept. 1., as the delta variant was surging.
The tally comes as preliminary data suggests that omicron is significantly more contagious than other variants. The latest surge is the second-largest wave of the pandemic, behind the spike in infections between November 2020 and January 2021. On Jan. 12, the United States marked a record seven-day average of 248,209 cases.
Even before omicron was detected, coronavirus-related hospitalizations were rising in the United States. About 46,000 people were in hospitals for covid-19 in early November, compared with nearly 70,000 now. The number of people needing intensive care beds has also increased sharply.
The Biden administration and many state governments have been pushing already-immunized Americans to get booster shots. The makers of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines say additional doses provide significant protection against infection by omicron.
Globally, omicron still accounts for fewer than 10 percent of sequenced cases, Post data shows. But in South Africa, where scientists were the first to sequence omicron, the variant is now responsible for more than 99 percent of recently detected cases. Omicron accounts for about 40 percent of recent cases in Norway, which announced on Dec. 1 that it had found its first infections of the variant.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that omicron made up 73 percent of new cases from Dec. 12 to 18. Detection of the first omicron infection in the country was announced Dec. 1.
Researchers at the University of Washington have projected that the United States could mark a high of some 2.8 million new daily infections in late January, dwarfing numbers from last winter.
There is some evidence that omicron, while infectious, causes fewer hospitalizations and less severe symptoms than other variants. On Wednesday, a South African study, which has not been peer reviewed, showed omicron was 80 percent less likely to lead to hospitalizations than delta. On the same day, researchers at Imperial College London also said there was less risk of hospitalization for omicron than delta.
But health officials have noted that even if omicron causes milder disease, the sheer number of infections triggered by the variant could still overwhelm health-care systems across the world. President Biden has ordered his administration to prepare for a surge in hospitalizations.
Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said on MSNBC this week that omicron would hunt down the unvaccinated. “When you’re dealing with one that spreads so rapidly and you are unvaccinated, the virus is going to find you.”
