COVID-19 hospitalizations surpassed the United States’ winter peak over the weekend, and the nation logged a new single-day record of nearly 1.5 million new cases on Monday, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.
According to The Wall Street Journal’s analysis of HHS figures, the U.S. seven-day average reached 140,576 people hospitalized with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, inundating already strained health care facilities nationwide.
Despite its reputation for causing mild illness, the Omicron coronavirus variant is fueling a staggering rise in hospitalizations across the U.S.
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 11, 2022
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The latest surges indicate that new waves of patients are overrunning hospitals already stretched thin by staffing shortages and heavy caseloads, forcing facilities to ration care, the Journal reported.
“Somebody somewhere is calling 911, and they are waiting longer for an ambulance,” Gerald Maloney, chief medical officer for the Geisinger Health System’s hospitals in Pennsylvania, told the newspaper.
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To date, nearly 62.3 million cumulative COVID-19 cases have been reported nationwide since the start of the pandemic, including more than 11.4 million diagnosed within the past 28 days, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday that about half of the city’s hospitalizations are people hospitalized “with” COVID-19 as opposed to “for” COVID-19. Likewise, a Monday press release from the New York state Department of Health reported 42% of the state’s hospitalized patients were admitted for something other than COVID-19, the network reported.
Meanwhile, average daily case counts reached record highs in 28 states Monday, and record hospitalizations have been confirmed in 15 states and the District of Columbia, according to a CNBC analysis of HHS data dating back to the summer of 2020.
“There is a lot of infection around the country right now, and, at the end of this, probably 30% to 40% of the U.S. population will have been infected by omicron,” former FDA commissioner, Pfizer board member and CNBC contributor Scott Gottlieb, told the network’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday.
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