People are waiting in line to get tested at a site in Washington, D.C. More than 1 million Americans tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.
Eva Hambach is pictured.
The US reported a record 1,082,549 new COVID-19 cases on Monday. The omicron variant is sweeping across the U.S. and around the world.
The U.S. has broken several of its own records. During the peak of the delta surge, the number of daily cases reported by the hospital was less than half of what it was last week. The seven-day average was over 280,000.
In early November, the country averaged about 70,000 cases a day.
Delays in reporting over the holidays could be to blame for Monday's rise. The daily average for infections is 480,273.
The number of people diagnosed with H1N1 is more than double that seen anywhere else in the world.
Public health experts have noted that the numbers could be undercount. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told NPR last week that it's hard to capture the true number of cases with so many people testing themselves at home.
Experts caution against putting too much stock in case counts, focusing instead on metrics like hospitalizations and deaths which reflect the severity of illness. The numbers are rising, but not at the same rate.
The number of hospitalizations is more relevant than the overall cases.
The number of hospitalizations is noteworthy.
More than 100,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19, and 26% of the intensive care beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
The first time was a year ago, when hospitalizations exceeded 120,000. The second time was this summer.
The number of deaths on Monday was down from a record 4,442 deaths in January.
Hospitals are still strained despite fewer people getting sick.
The perception that omicron is less severe than delta might be because it's infecting a lot of people who are less likely to get sick.
She spoke with a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital who said that data showed that omicron may be just as severe as previous versions in unvaccinated people, which could lead to a sharp increase in hospitalizations.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday that the country is seeing "almost a vertical increase" in cases, and that even a relatively lower rate of hospitalizations could strain already overwhelmed hospitals.
Even if you have less severity, you're still going to get a lot of people that are going to be. That's the reason why we're concerned about straining the hospital system.
There are a lot of cases disrupting plans and industries.
On Monday, Dr. Natalie Dean made a similar case on NPR's All Things Considered.
She said that the public health impact is made up of a lot of different things. Infections have impacts and we think about all the people who are going to need to miss work, including health care professionals and frontline workers. The numbers have meaning, but it is different when someone is mildly ill or not sick at all.
The case count has disrupted travel and made it difficult to get back to work and school. The CDC is considering adding a negative test to its recommendation of isolating people if they are no longer showing symptoms.
The omicron variant is believed to be the cause of 95.4% of coronaviruses cases, according to the CDC.
"Just seeing the transmissibility of delta was amazing, but this is even more amazing," Dean said. It's hard to wrap our heads around that. It's going to be a lot of disruption, just how many people are likely to be affected over the next month.
The cumulative infections for the U.S. are the most of any country.
This story was originally published in the Morning Edition live blog.
