Washington (USA): The US is back to square one in the fight against coronavirus as the country reported over one million cases of Covid-19 alone on Monday.
The US health authorities registered more than three times as many new cases as in any previous wave of the coronavirus, over 1 million reported on Monday alone, reported USA TODAY.
"A substantial increase in coronavirus infections was expected when this week's numbers came out, but nothing like this. About 1 of every 100 Americans will have been reported as a positive case in just the last week," according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
With such a huge spike in cases, hospitalisations too have seen a massive jump putting more pressure on the country's healthcare systems.
COVID-19 hospitalisations in the US reached a record high in nearly four months with more than 100,000 citizens currently admitted in hospitals.
According to the latest data from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), COVID-19 hospitalizations was highest on January 14, 2021, with a high of more than 142,000 and they last topped 100,000 on September 11, 2021, reported CNN.
There have only been 67 days throughout the entire pandemic when more than 100,000 people have been hospitalized with coronavirus.
Currently, about three-quarters of hospital beds across the country are full, and one in seven are for COVID-19 patients, reported CNN.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris planned to meet with the White House coronavirus response team to discuss a course of action as omicron becomes ubiquitous.
By 7:30 pm ET Monday, Johns Hopkins University data showed about 1,042,000 more cases than the day before, and it wasn't immediately clear that all states had reported in. That count clearly includes hefty numbers of backlogged cases.
About one-fifth of states reported infections Saturday and one-third Sunday. Still, the previous single-day record was about 591,000 cases, set Thursday, reported USA TODAY.
The preliminary total for Monday could drive the country to a weekly average of close to 450,000 cases per day. The previous highest total for a whole week, 1.76 million, figures to be not only surpassed but possibly doubled.
The US has recorded more than 55 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, or one for every six people in the country -- and more than 826,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration on Monday expanded the emergency use authorization of a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to include youths 12 to 15.
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