The United States has crossed an alarming milestone on Monday after recording one million coronavirus cases in a single day amid the continuous surge of the Omicron variant, leaving vaccines scrambling to protect younger people from the infection.
The new strain, which is believed to be highly transmissible, has quickly spread worldwide since it was first reported in South Africa. The Omicron variant has pushed the United States to a record-breaking count that is more than any country has ever reported and by a large margin.
1 Million Coronavirus Cases
The numbers reported were nearly double the number of infections four days ago where the United States recorded roughly 590,000. Additionally, that number is already double the infections recorded the week prior.
The recent record-high cases are also more than double the number of infections seen anywhere else at any point in time since the coronavirus pandemic began two years ago. The highest number of infections seen in the United States occurred during the Delta surge from India, when the country recorded more than 414,000 people being confirmed cases on May 7, 2021, Bloomberg reported.
The exact number of cases came to 1,082,549 infections based on data from Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, the data showed that new coronavirus cases in the United States were recorded at 363,592 per day on a seven-day average as of 6:00 a.m. ET Monday.
With the addition of the recent confirmed cases, the total number of cases confirmed within the United States has been bumped up to 56,189,547, since the start of the health crisis. Moreover, the virus has already taken the lives of 827,748 people across the country, marking a grim milestone for the people of the nation.
The Johns Hopkins University's data showed that the states in the country with the highest numbers of new confirmed cases per 100,000 people were Maryland, Alabama, Delaware, New Jersey, and Ohio, CNBC reported.
Coronavirus Vaccines
The situation comes as vaccine manufacturers are scrambling to get their treatments approved for younger people in order to protect more people from the virus. On Tuesday, United States President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris planned to meet with the White House coronavirus response team to talk about what they could do amid the spread of the Omicron variant.
Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the emergency use authorization of a booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine to include younger people aged 12 to 15. Officials from the agency also reduced the required waiting time for a booster shot from six to five months after a person has received their second shot if they are 12 years or older.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is still required to sign off on the authorization. "Hopefully this will be not just a call for people to go get their booster shot," said FDA vaccine chief Peter Marks. The official added that it was not too late to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, USA Today reported.
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