Omicron Reported In 19 US States

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread to 19 U.S. states, and the number is likely to rise further in the coming weeks, White House COVID-19 Response Team said.

According to The Washington Post, omicron variant has now been detected in patients in 21 states.

State and local public health authorities, in collaboration with the CDC, are actively investigating confirmed and possible cases, conducting contact tracing, and implementing prevention strategies to help slow the spread of this new variant, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a routine news conference.

CDC is assisting both the Minnesota and New York City health departments with the investigation among attendees at a recent Anime New York City convention. It has contacted all 50 states and 27 other countries with residents who attended, to inform them of this investigation.

Of the reported 53,000 people who attended that conference, more than 35,000 have been contacted to encourage testing for all attendees.

“Right now, we’re seeing about 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 each day in the United States. We must act together in this moment to address the impact of the current cases we are seeing, which are largely Delta, and to prepare ourselves for the possibility of more Omicron,” Dr.Walensky told reporters.

Speaking about the potential threat posed by the new variant, Chief Medical Advisor to the President Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “We are not seeing a very severe profile of disease. In fact, it might be be less severe, as shown by the ratio of hospitalizations per number of new cases.”

With 108930 additional coronavirus infections reporting on Tuesday, the national total has reached 49,389,503, as per the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

An additional 1609 Covid deaths on the same day took the total number of people who died due to the pandemic to 791,514.

Minnesota is the worst state in terms of daily infections, with 12,420 new cases reporting on Tuesday. Most Covid deaths – 172 – occurred in Arizona.

The current seven-day average of cases is about 103,800 per day. The seven-day average of daily deaths is about 1,100 per day. The weekly average of hospital admissions is about 6,800 per day.

39,742,867 people have so far recovered from the disease in the country.

As per the latest data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 199,687,439 people in the United States, or more than 60 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. This includes 86.6 percent of people above 65.

More than 47 million Americans, or 24 percent of the population, have already received a booster shot.

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