Feb 02, 2022, 22:53 pm
The average number of daily deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. over the past week has climbed above 2,600, according to a New York Times tracker, now higher than the peak surge in the fall when the delta variant was the dominant variant and close to the peak last winter, before vaccines were available.
Deaths are up 36% from two weeks ago and show no signs of plateauing, the tracker shows. If current death rates persists, the U.S. may see 900,000 fatalities from COVID by mid-February.
Cases, with the highly infectious omicron variant still dominant, are coming down from their January peak and averaging 424,077 a day, down 44% from two weeks ago.
Hospitalizations are down 14% from two weeks ago at 136,753 a day on average.
The rising death toll has disappointed many who had hoped that omicron, which spreads fast but is considered less lethal than other variants, would gradually bring the pandemic to an endemic stage, where it is still present but no longer creating surges of cases and burdening healthcare systems, allowing Americans to get back to something like normality.
The U.S. death rate is higher than in any other wealthy country, according to a Times report, and has exposed weaknesses in the country’s response to the crisis.
Since the first omicron case was detected in the U.S. on Dec. 1, the number of people who have died of COVID is at least 63% higher than those of a number of other big, wealthy countries, according to a Times analysis of mortality rates.
The only European countries with higher death rates are Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic, the Times reported, noting that treatments in those countries are in short supply.
The death rate analysis comes at a time when political leaders are clamoring for the government to treat COVID as endemic, as some European countries have started doing.
Denmark on Tuesday became the first European Union country to drop all of its COVID restrictions — including face masks, vaccine passes and limited opening hours — even as it is seeing record numbers of cases. Norway followed suit on Wednesday. The U.K. and Ireland have also dropped most restrictions, the former amid a political firestorm over Downing Street parties held during strict national lockdowns.
The head of the World Health Organization warned Tuesday that it’s too early to throw in the towel on the pandemic and urged countries to stick with mitigation measures and to keep tracking variants.
In its latest weekly epidemiological update, the WHO said the number of global deaths from COVID rose 9% to 59,000 in the week through Jan. 30, while more than 22 million new cases were diagnosed.
The omicron subvariant, also identified as BA.2, is now in 57 countries, according to the update.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-co...yptr=yahoo
Deaths are up 36% from two weeks ago and show no signs of plateauing, the tracker shows. If current death rates persists, the U.S. may see 900,000 fatalities from COVID by mid-February.
Cases, with the highly infectious omicron variant still dominant, are coming down from their January peak and averaging 424,077 a day, down 44% from two weeks ago.
Hospitalizations are down 14% from two weeks ago at 136,753 a day on average.
The rising death toll has disappointed many who had hoped that omicron, which spreads fast but is considered less lethal than other variants, would gradually bring the pandemic to an endemic stage, where it is still present but no longer creating surges of cases and burdening healthcare systems, allowing Americans to get back to something like normality.
The U.S. death rate is higher than in any other wealthy country, according to a Times report, and has exposed weaknesses in the country’s response to the crisis.
Since the first omicron case was detected in the U.S. on Dec. 1, the number of people who have died of COVID is at least 63% higher than those of a number of other big, wealthy countries, according to a Times analysis of mortality rates.
The only European countries with higher death rates are Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic, the Times reported, noting that treatments in those countries are in short supply.
The death rate analysis comes at a time when political leaders are clamoring for the government to treat COVID as endemic, as some European countries have started doing.
Denmark on Tuesday became the first European Union country to drop all of its COVID restrictions — including face masks, vaccine passes and limited opening hours — even as it is seeing record numbers of cases. Norway followed suit on Wednesday. The U.K. and Ireland have also dropped most restrictions, the former amid a political firestorm over Downing Street parties held during strict national lockdowns.
The head of the World Health Organization warned Tuesday that it’s too early to throw in the towel on the pandemic and urged countries to stick with mitigation measures and to keep tracking variants.
In its latest weekly epidemiological update, the WHO said the number of global deaths from COVID rose 9% to 59,000 in the week through Jan. 30, while more than 22 million new cases were diagnosed.
The omicron subvariant, also identified as BA.2, is now in 57 countries, according to the update.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-co...yptr=yahoo