The U.S. record for daily cases is broken as an Omicron ‘tidal wave’ grows.
The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — Delta and Omicron — have converged to disrupt holiday travel and gatherings, deplete hospital staffs and plunge the United States into another long winter.
As a third year of the pandemic loomed, the seven-day average of U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database. The milestone was marked after a year that has whipsawed Americans from a relaxation of rules in the spring to a Delta-driven summer wave to another surge that accelerated with astonishing speed as Omicron emerged after Thanksgiving.
President Biden has repeatedly said that the era of lockdowns is over and promised to increase testing, double down on vaccination campaigns and prop up hospitals. But public health experts have warned that the measures will not be sufficient to prevent soaring infections and hospitalizations over the next few weeks. And demand for tests has exploded while manufacturers are scrambling to increase production and distribution.
The country faces other challenges with omicron in terms of its medicine cabinet. Two of the three existing intravenous treatments called monoclonal antibodies - those from Regeneron and Eli Lilly - do not work against the variant. Some Republican governors had touted the ability of those with covid-19 to receive monoclonal antibodies, spurring some Americans to see those treatments as an alternative to getting vaccinated.
The only monoclonal antibody that does work, sotrovimab from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline, is in short supply and will not be available to many of those who become infected. The Food and Drug Administration authorized two easy-to-take antiviral pills last week and one has high efficacy against omicron, but it will be in initial short supply. Distribution of the pills is expected to begin shortly.