Covid-19: US stays worst hit with most cases, deaths

Washington: The United States of America stays the worst Covid-19 hit country globally with the highest number of deaths and cumulative infections, IANS reported, citing a media report.

According to Johns Hopkins University data, the country had reported 7,53,16,209 positive cases and 8,90,528 deaths so far due to the pandemic. In the last week, the country recorded a 39 per cent rise in pandemic related deaths.

During the last seven days, the death toll per day went past 2,400, as per the data, and experts predicted the death rate to keep increasing.

Further, the data suggests that cases in the US are to the tune of 1 million fresh cases per day in mid-January. The US is reporting 4,50,000 fresh cases per day now, which is the last seven-day average, while 36 per cent over the previous two weeks.

In the meantime, the US Centers o Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated that 99.9 per cent of new cases in the nation is out of highly contagious Omicron. The variant, though perceived mild, increased hospitalisations testing health care systems in the country.

Ken Silverstein, chief physician executive of ChristianaCare, said that there is nothing mild about what's happening in his hospital and its ICUs, mainly if one is unvaccinated or hasn't been shot with a booster. Dr Shereef Elnahal, CEO of Newark, New Jersey-based University Hospital, said about half of those patients approaching hospitals require intensive care. He added that the speed of spreading is causing the absolute number of those needing ventilators to be similar to previous waves.