:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/ISL3JH7JZNBULBEYDFBPQJQKMI.jpg "US registers its highest record of daily coronavirus infections of the entire pandemic")
U.S., facing a fifth wave of coronavirus due to the omicron variant, on Tuesday registered a record average of 265,427 new daily cases since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The average number of new cases per day in the last seven days in the most mourning country in the world surpassed the record of 251,989 reached during the third wave, in January 2021.
Omicron is the dominant variant in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It accounted for around 59% of new cases in the week ending December 25.
This federal public health agency has drastically revised down its estimates for the previous week (the one ended on December 18): from 73% of omicron it goes to 22.5% (correct data).
“We have received more data on this period and there has been a reduction in the proportion of omicron”, a CDC spokeswoman explained to AFP.
“It is important to note that we continue to see a continuous increase in the proportion of omicron”, she insisted nonetheless.
The curve for new infections, which fell between the beginning of September and the end of October after a fourth wave caused by the delta variant, has risen again for two months and is now skyrocketing with the highly contagious omicron variant.
“It will be a fast wave, but very difficult.” Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina estimated on Twitter on Tuesday, who also considers that the record of infections is only the “tip of the iceberg” due to the number of undetected or undeclared cases.
At the moment the hospitalization curve is also increasing, with about 9,000 daily admissions of new covid-19 patients in U.S, but it’s a far cry from the 16,500 recorded in early January 2021, according to CDC data.
Currently around 1,200 people die on average daily from covid-19 in the country, while a year ago the maximum was about 3,400 deaths.
The world has reached new records of infections during the past week, with an average of more than 935,000 cases of covid-19 detected daily from December 22 to 28, according to an AFP count based on official data.