Today President Joe Biden addressed the rising cases of Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant, emphasizing that all Americans who are able should get booster vaccine doses as soon as possible.
"You can still get COVID-19, but it's very unlikely you will get seriously ill," Biden said. "If you are vaccinated and boosted you are highly protected."
Biden tried to offer a measure a calm as the nation tallied more than 1 million cases new cases yesterday in a post-holiday surge caused by the more transmissible variant, first identified on Nov 24 in South Africa.
The United States reported 1,082,549 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and 1,688 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker. It's unclear whether the newly reported cases included backlogs from holiday testing. The 7-day average of new daily cases is 486,658, with 1,276 deaths and 97,847 hospitalized, according to the New York Times tracker.
The president said he wanted schools to remain open, and promised testing shortages would be resolved in the coming weeks. He also said he had doubled the federal government's order of Paxlovid, Pfizer's COVID-19 pill, to 20 million.
Pediatric COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations soar
At least nine states have reported record numbers of COVID-related pediatric hospitalizations, according to an NBC News analysis. Nationwide, as of this weekend, the 7-day average of pediatric COVID-19 admissions had hit a pandemic peak of 1,354 a day.
Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Washington, D.C., have all reached new highs in pediatric hospitalizations.
According to the latest update from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), more than 325,000 child COVID-19 cases were reported from Dec 23 to Dec 30, a 64% increase from the previous week.
"COVID-19 cases among US children have reached the highest case count ever reported since the start of the pandemic," the AAP said. Nearly 7.9 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, representing over 1 in 10 American children.
President Biden said today there is no evidence Omicron causes more severe infections in children.
ACIP to decide on boosters tomorrow
The surge in pediatric cases is affecting school districts, many of which are shifting to online learning to deal with positive cases in the classroom following the winter break. The Chicago Teachers Union will meet today to vote on whether its teachers should move to virtual teaching amid a surge in coronavirus cases, CNN reports.
In related news, early this morning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, approved booster vaccine doses for immunocompromised children ages 5 to 11, after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of boosters in that group yesterday.
Walensky also said the CDC agrees with the FDA's decision to shorten the window for boosters from 6 to 5 months. Tomorrow ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) is expected to take up the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech booster in adolescents ages 12 to 15.
Other US developments
- Puerto Rico is imposing new measures to fight a massive surge in COVID-19 cases that has overwhelmed medical staff in the US territory, the Associated Press reports. Of Puerto Rico's total of 201,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases, a third have occurred in the last month.
- Omicron-driven staffing shortages are interrupting public transit services in New York and other cities, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- Starbucks is requiring its 220,000 US workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine or be tested weekly, according to ABC News.
