Will the Us Have to Shut Down Again
"Omicron is truly everywhere," Dr. Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Dark-brown University'southward School of Public Health, told CNN on Fri night. "What I am so worried about over the next month or so is that our economy is going to close down, not because of policies from the federal government or from the land governments, just rather because so many of us are ill."
The nation broke records at least 4 times this week for its seven-twenty-four hours average of new daily Covid-19 cases, reporting an all-time high of more than 386,000 new daily infections Friday, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The high instance count is already causing disruptions in the country.
In New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation Say-so (MTA) is plagued with staffing issues and announced three subway lines -- the B, Z and West -- which service diverse parts of the boroughs, have been suspended.
"Like everyone in New York, nosotros've been affected by the COVID surge. We're running as much railroad train service as we tin with the operators we take available," the MTA wrote on Twitter Thursday.
New York continues to intermission its own record, adding 85,476 reported Covid-19 cases, according to Saturday'south conference from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hospitalizations jumped to 8,451, up from around 8,000 in the report released Fri, according to the latest information. The state's 7-day positivity rate is xix.79%.
The number of i day instance additions has increased 219% since Mon, when the country reported an addition of 26,737 cases.
Healthcare services -- exhausted after several surges of the virus and now stretched thin once again by a growing number of Covid-19 patients -- are also already feeling impacts. The University of Maryland Capital Region Wellness this calendar week joined a growing list of medical centers in the country to activate emergency protocols after a sharp rise in cases fueled staffing shortages and overwhelmed emergency departments.
"The current demand for care is depleting our available resources, including staffing," UM Majuscule Region Health said in a statement on Friday.
In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday announced the deployment of near 1,250 National Guard members equally hospitals struggle with staffing shortages.
On the aforementioned day, the mayor of Cincinnati declared a state of emergency due to staffing shortages in the city's fire section following a rise in Covid-19 infections. The mayor'southward proclamation said if the staffing problem goes unaddressed, information technology would "essentially undermine" first responders' readiness levels.
"Get set up. We have to remember, in the next few weeks, there'southward going to exist an unprecedented number of social disruptions," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor Academy'southward National School of Tropical Medicine, told CNN.
Those include flight disruptions as well, he said, because of TSA agent and air crew absences.
Thousands of flights have already been canceled or delayed throughout the holiday season equally staff and crew called out sick. On Fri, the Federal Aviation Administration said an "increased number" of its employees were testing positive for the virus, and "to maintain safety, traffic volume at some facilities could exist reduced, which might result in delays during busy periods."
Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'
The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.
The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to assistance now may not be every bit helpful, CNN medical annotator Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.
"At the start of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a meaning exposure if you're inside six feet of somebody and y'all're in contact with them for more than than fifteen minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."
Now, fifty-fifty a quick, transient run into can pb to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person speedily pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an lift in which someone else has merely coughed.
"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.
The variant'south transmissibility helps explain the staggering number of infections reported globally, including in the United states of america. in the past calendar week, several states have reported new case and hospitalization highs, shattering previous records.
New Jersey recorded more than 28,000 new Covid-19 cases through PCR testing, Gov. Phil Murphy wrote on Twitter Friday. In a news conference, the governor said the number was roughly "quadruple from just 2 weeks ago, and four times as many cases than during the top of last wintertime'southward surge."
"Our hospitals right now are at roughly the same numbers they were on the worst day of terminal wintertime's surge," he added. "The problem is that correct now we don't run across any sign of allow up."
Other states, including Arkansas, Maryland and New York, also reported new records for case numbers.
And a sharp ascent in infections -- especially in children -- could soon lead to a spike in hospital admissions, infectious diseases expert Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo said.
"The explosive rise in cases is really fueling what normally might be a relatively small proportion ... of kids who are experiencing these severe outcomes," she told CNN's Amara Walker on Friday. "But you lot put the gigantic numbers of cases together with the small number afflicted, plus the proportion of unvaccinated, and I'm really worried that we're going to be in for a tidal moving ridge of admissions, particularly for kids in the coming weeks."
Child Covid-nineteen hospital admissions already reached an all-time high this week, with a record average of 378 children admitted to hospitals on any given day over the calendar week ending December 28, co-ordinate to the US Centers for Affliction Command and Prevention and the US Section of Wellness and Man Services.
Children younger than 5 are non all the same eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine, and a shot for those groups likely won't be available until mid-2022, experts say.
Concerns about returning to school
With the virus spreading, some staff members and experts are expressing business organisation about what school reopenings could mean.
"At that place volition exist pediatric hospitalizations," Hotez said. "And what'due south going to be the other tough piece in the next weeks, keeping the schools open, because of this high transmissibility -- especially if you start seeing absences of school teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria staff."
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, New England'south largest public sector union, urged the state education commissioner this week to keep schools airtight on Monday, except for staff Covid-19 testing.
"Using Monday as a 24-hour interval for testing and analyzing data will allow our school districts to make prudent decisions effectually staffing needs so they can continue in-person learning for students if it is safe or develop contingency plans if a district deems it to be necessary," Merrie Najimy, the association's president, said in a argument.
The state's Executive Role of Pedagogy said Fri schools volition be open on Monday, despite the instructor matrimony's asking.
"The Department of Unproblematic and Secondary Pedagogy worked hard this week to make at-domicile rapid tests available to all public schoolhouse teachers and staff in light of the testing shortages being experienced around the state. Massachusetts is one of only a scattering of states supplying rapid tests to its teachers. It is a not a requirement for teachers to return to work, or necessary to reopen schools after the holiday break," Colleen Quinn, a spokesperson for the office, said in a statement.
"It is disappointing," the statement added, "that again the MTA is trying to find a way to close schools, which nosotros know is to the extreme detriment of our children."
Atlanta Public Schools (APS) announced all district schools will operate virtually through Friday, January 7, for all students and staff, co-ordinate to a statement on Sat.
Citing the surging Covid-19 cases, APS said the district elected to postpone in-person learning until Monday, January ten. The movement will permit students and staff to be tested and if needed, to isolate and quarantine, per CDC and Section of Health Guidelines, according to APS.
All APS staff members are required to report to their workplaces on Mon for Covid-19 testing, the statement said.
Neighboring Fulton County Schools and DeKalb Canton Schools also announced Sabbatum they are starting online next week as students return to classes later on the holiday suspension, according to verified tweets from both districts.
Fulton and DeKalb besides aim to return to in-person instruction on January 10.
Meanwhile, a growing number of colleges and universities across the country are making changes to the starting time of the 2022 spring semester as a result of the case surge.
Duke Academy extended its programme for remote classes by another calendar week because of an "incredibly high" positive case count among faculty and an increasing number of cases among students who are already in the surface area, the school said Friday.
Michigan State University announced Friday that classes will start primarily remotely on January ten and will stay remote for at least iii weeks.
"I realize that students adopt to be in person, and so practice I," Samuel L. Stanley Jr., the university's president, said in a statement. "Only information technology is of import that we do then in a rubber manner. Starting the semester remotely and de-densifying campus in the coming weeks can be a solution to slowing the spread of the virus."
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the number of records broken this calendar week in the seven-day average of new daily Covid-19 cases. The most recent average figure has also been updated to reflect the latest data from JHU.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/01/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
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