By Jinshan Hong, Bloomberg News (TNS)
More than 1 million people in the U.S. were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Monday as a tsunami of omicron swamps every aspect of daily American life.
The highly mutated variant drove U.S. cases to a record, the most — by a large margin — that any country has ever reported. Monday’s number is almost double the previous record of about 590,000 set just four days ago in the U.S., which itself was a doubling from the prior week.
It is also more than twice the case count seen anywhere else at any time since the pandemic began more than two years ago. The highest number outside the U.S. came during India’s delta surge, when more than 414,000 people were diagnosed on May 7, 2021.
The stratospheric numbers being posted in the U.S. come even as many Americans are relying on tests they take at home, with results that aren’t reported to official government authorities. That means the record is surely a significant under-estimate.
While surging cases haven’t yet translated into severe infections and skyrocketing deaths, their impact has been felt across the country as the newly infected isolate at home. The results are canceled flights, closed schools and offices, overwhelmed hospitals and strangled supply chains.
The data from Johns Hopkins University is complete as of midnight eastern time in Baltimore, and delays in reporting over the holidays may have played a role in the rising rates.
The silver lining is that deaths from COVID haven’t similarly soared. Early studies show the omicron variant spreads faster than earlier strains but causes milder symptoms.
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