People wait in line to take coronaviruses disease tests at a pop up testing site in New York City.
The United States has seen its highest level of covid cases as two highly infectious versions circulate throughout the country.
According to the data compiled by the University, the daily average of cases in the country is now more than 265,000, which is more than the previous high of 252,000 cases set in January of 2011.
The omicron and delta variant are spreading at the same time. The emergence of omicron is contributing to a rise in daily new cases in the U.S., as the previously dominant delta variant was already driving U.S. case counts higher this fall.
More than 1,500 daily deaths are reported in the country and about 75,000 Americans are hospitalized with Covid-19. When the last daily case record was set nearly a year ago, Covid vaccinations were not widely available. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, hospitalizations topped 137,000 at that point, and the average death toll was more than 3,200 per day.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about half of the US population is fully protected with two or one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna shots.
The risk for unvaccinated people remains the highest, and health officials want Americans to get a booster dose.
The director of the CDC said last week that the vaccine may not be enough because it has over 50 different genes. We need people to get boosted in order to increase their protection against severe disease and death with omicron.
In the United States, omicron and delta were the two most popular colors for Covid cases.
There has been some good news about the new variant, which was first detected in southern Africa in late November. Pfizer and Moderna have both said that a third dose of their Covid vaccine appears to provide significant protection against omicron, despite a two-shot regimen.
If the absolute number of cases gets high enough, a more mild disease with greater transmissibility could wreak havoc on health-care systems. If a small share of people are hospitalized, that could strain hospitals and impact care for both Covid and non- Covid patients.
Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York School of Public Health, said that a higher peak can further overwhelm the system for other people.
President Joe Biden announced last week that the White House will deploy 1,000 military personnel to help hospitals with a surge of patients with Covid. The 500 million at- home tests that the government will purchase will be free for Americans to order online.
During the busy holiday season, Americans are not able to get tested because of crowded airports. There is a shortage of at- home test kits, with national and independent pharmacies struggling to keep them in stock. In New York, lines to get tested at clinics can take hours.
Biden said in an interview that he wished he had ordered the test kits two months ago.
A number of states report daily case counts. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, and Hawaii are all at all-time highs according to a CNBC analysis. Connecticut, Delaware, and the District of Columbia all hit records in December before dipping back below their previous peaks.
Hospitals are increasing in almost all of these states. The seven-day average of patients in hospital beds with Covid in D.C. has increased by 70% from the prior week, nearing a record, while Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia have each seen weekly increases of 20% or more.
The surge in the H1N1 outbreak is much higher than expected, according to the top epidemiologist in D.C. According to data from the Hopkins organization, D.C. is reporting about 2,000 average daily cases, 10 times more than two weeks ago and more than any state on a population-adjusted basis.
Mangla said that it was obvious that omicron was here. Absolutely, is there delta? We are definitely convinced that omicron is here.
The decreasing percentage of D.C. Covid cases who were hospitalized, which is down to 2.6% from more than 5% earlier in the month, is a potentially hopeful sign that omicron causes milder disease. In recent weeks, there have been more infections in D.C.
Carlos Malvestutto is an infectious diseases physician at the Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. Most of the patients currently in the hospital are likely sick with delta, but omicron is now being seen in the majority of new Covid test results.
Malvestutto said that most of the hospitalized patients are unvaccinated. Even if the variant causes milder disease, he still thinks the state will surpass its high hospitalization level set in December of 2020 when more than 5,600 patients were hospitalized with Covid. As of Tuesday, that figure was nearly 5,200.
He said that even though the virulence appears to be lower, it is likely to still lead to an increase in hospitalizations. You are in better shape if you are boosted.
CNBC's Spencer Kimball contributed reporting.
