https://ift.tt/2kmUBVA. President Joe Biden’s administration is ramping up its national coronavirus containment campaign as record-high infections fueled by the omicron variant threaten to overwhelm hospitals and disrupt some school reopening plans.
The United States reported one million new infections on Monday, the highest of any country in the world. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Wednesday the seven-day average of infections is about 491,700 daily, a 98% increase from the previous week.
“We now estimate that omicron represents about 95% of cases in the country and delta represents the remaining 5% of the cases, Walensky said during the regular White House coronavirus briefing.
“The sharp rise in cases and the emergence of the more transmissible omicron variant emphasizes the importance of vaccinations and boosters,” Walensky added.
Biden on Tuesday urged the 35 million adults who have not been inoculated to do so, noting that unvaccinated people were taking hospital beds and crowding emergency rooms that other patients need.
In addition to triggering thousands of commercial flight cancellations and closures of entertainment and other venues in recent weeks, the latest spike is disrupting plans to reopen public schools after the winter break.
Public school officials in the midwestern city of Chicago, the third-largest school district in the U.S., said they would cancel classes on Wednesday after the teachers’ union voted to return to remote learning because cases reached record-high levels. It was unclear Wednesday if schools would remain closed for the rest of the week.
In the northwestern city of Seattle, about 4% of the more than 14,000 students and staff in public schools who participated in the school system’s rapid testing program tested positive. The tests were administered in pop-up clinics on Sunday and Monday after receiving 60,000 rapid tests from the state health department.