US breaks daily Covid cases world record at 647,067 and has more than 2million in one week

The US had 2.49million Covid-19 cases in the past week (Picture: Getty Images)

The US has broken the global record for coronavirus cases again, with 647,067 logged in a single day and more than 2million recorded in one week.

Thursday’s daily Covid-19 cases figure was up 26% from the prior day’s 512,533, according to the Daily Mail. The US had 2.49million cases in the past week, far surpassing the prior record of 1.7million cases from January 3 to 9, according to a USA Today analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

By comparison, the US had 2.55million coronavirus cases in the whole month of November, according to the analysis.

The US is now averaging 356,000 cases daily, which is more than four cases per second.

Also on Thursday, 16 states reached record-highs in their average daily infections. They include Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington, as well as Puerto Rico.

One of the particularly hard-hit states, New York, had 76,500 people test positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, Governor Kathy Hochul said on Friday. That topped the state’s previous record for the prior 24 hours.

While case numbers in the US are skyrocketing, fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, deaths have been fewer than during other heights of the pandemic. In the last week, 10,823 people died in the US, less than half of the 23,415 that died from January 10 to 16, 2021.

Worldwide, Covid-19 cases hiked up 61% from the prior week, and the total cases are close to double what they were two weeks ago. That is nearly 14 infections per second.

The Omicron variant accounts for 40% to 70% of new coronavirus cases in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

‘We are at the very beginning, unfortunately, and likely have at least four to eight weeks before we’re going to see it rise and then begin to fall again,’ University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm told CBS News.

‘And during that time, we are going to see COVID activity in this country like we haven’t seen since the beginning of the pandemic.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

from News – Metro https://ift.tt/3FJ74tB