Record 1 Mill New Covid Cases In US Single Day: Omicron 'Fastest Spreading Virus Known To Humankind'

[appalachiablue]

- Daily Kos, Jan. 4, 2022. 'Omicron is the 'fastest-spreading virus known to humankind,' even if anti-vaxx views aren't new.' - Ed.

The omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus is spreading throughout the U.S. at an incredible pace. As reported by CNBC: - The U.S. reported a record number of new Covid cases on Monday, with over one million new infections. A total of 1,082,549 new coronavirus cases were reported on Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as the highly infectious omicron variant continues to spread throughout the country. - Not all of these infections are due to the omicron variant; as of Dec. 25, the last date that such tallies were available, the delta variant had accounted for about 41% of new cases, with infections attributable to omicron at about 59%. As CNBC notes, the astonishing single-day figure may be due to delayed reporting of cases over the holiday weekend.

- Nonetheless, as of Jan. 3, the seven-day average of daily new U.S. cases is 480,273, meaning the U.S. has the highest 7-day average of new cases in the world, according to JHU’s rankings. - Thankfully, it still appears that omicron is far less lethal than delta, although it spreads far more rapidly. As noted by Paul Krugman, writing for The New York Times, ”The delta variant shocked us with its lethality; now omicron is shocking us with its transmissibility.” Exactly how transmissible and contagious is the omicron variant? Manuel Asede, writing for El Pais, quotes multiple sources in concluding that omicron is the “fastest-spreading virus known to humankind.”

- Historian and physician Anton Erkoreka researches epidemics from the past, and is flabbergasted by omicron’s spread. “It is the most-explosive and the fastest-spreading virus in history,” he declared. Erkoreka, director of the Basque Museum of the History of Medicine, recalls that the Black Death (14th century) and 19th-century cholera took years to spread around the world. The so-called Russian flu of 1889, which may have been caused by another coronavirus, required three months to traverse the planet. That is similar to the time taken by the original variant of SARS-CoV-2, detected in December 2019 in Wuhan and already omnipresent by March 2020. “The omicron variant has beaten that record of expansion,” Erkoreka said. -

Krugman’s essay points out that even as omicron surges through the American population, Republicans now appear to have a vested interest in minimizing the effects of COVID-19, no matter what variant is involved. He cites a November survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation which found that of the unvaccinated, 60% self-identify as Republicans, while only 17% identify as Democrats. Political figures like Marco Rubio are dismissing the response to Omicron as “irrational hysteria” because the variant appears to cause relatively few hospitalizations among the fully vaccinated. He slips quickly past that last qualification, which the KFF survey suggests has eluded millions of unvaccinated Republicans, who declare themselves unworried by a disease that should have them very worried indeed. As Krugman points out, the data-to-date point to a singular consistency common to both the delta and omicron variants of COVID-19: @hile breakthrough infections continue to occur—especially for omicron—“even when vaccinated Americans do get infected they are far less likely than the unvaccinated to be hospitalized—or die.”

Vaccine refusal and denialism has always been with us. In the early 1800s, the fact that vaccines against smallpox were developed from cowpox vaccine prompted opposition from some quarters...

- Read More + 224 Comments,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/4/2072562/-CDC-reports-a-record-one-million-new-COVID-19-cases-in-the-U-S-in-a-single-day
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- SELECT COMMENTS:
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A million cases in a day is a million chances for it to mutate into something else. And we still haven’t seen the real doomsday scenario.. COVID 19 jumping to an animal species like deer or mice, picking up something totally new, and jumping back. This is going to happen eventually.
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I read an article yesterday that deer have the virus now. “Covid is rampant among deer, research shows” www.nbcnews.com/...
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The list of species that can get COVID is worrisome to say the least. At least 15 species have confirmed cases. (link to National Geographic article) They’re now part of a group of 315 animals from 15 species in the United States confirmed to have SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The list also includes cats, dogs, tigers, lions, snow leopards, gorillas, otters, a cougar, a ferret, white-tailed deer. (Infected mink, nearly all on fur farms, are not included in the total).
While I worry about the wild populations the real scary one is dogs and cats. Imagine the feral dogs or cats of a major city. Wait, isn’t an illness that sweeps thru the pets of the world how Planet of the Apes starts out? We’re living in a damn scifi novel.

[brewens]

1. I can see this crippling the vaccination effort at the worst time. Especially in red states. By

they panic and rush to get vaccinated, it might be hard to staff vax sites.

[BootinUp]

2. Yes, it is spreading like wild fire.

Wish I had my booster shot. My own laziness is to blame.

[appalachiablue]

5. If you don't have a physician, PCP for the booster

check out CVS Pharmacy. I just got mine there and their online scheduling was a breeze- I got an appt. for the shot 3-4 days later at the time and store I wanted.

Some pharmacies will do 'Walk Ins' w/o an appt.- if they have no shows, cancellations and the vaccine is in stock. RX depts. close around 7 pm, so going in around 6-7 is a good time. ~ Good luck!
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(A week or two before my '6 months' wait time passed, I really wanted the booster, a bit early- cuz Omicron! So I went to several CVS stores as a Walk In around 6 pm. One nice pharmacist only had the Pfizer, was willing to give me the vax, but Moderna is my brand so I waited, scheduled an appt. online and got the M. booster a few days later. *Like they tell you, be sure to drink at least 16 oz. of water before the appt.).

[BootinUp]

3. Yes this is all true. But I must point out that we appear

to have the scientific means to deal with it. I am utterly amazed, by what the scientists developing vaccines have already accomplished.

[MontanaMama]

4. My husband and I have breakthrough infections

that we are assuming is omicron. Hubs tested positive on the first day of symptoms and I have tested negative twice. He has very mild symptoms and I am the sickest I have been in years….fever, cough, body aches and congestion. A wonderful DUer who is a nurse checked in on me via PM and told me that antigen tests may not pick up omicron and a PCR test is what I need. Those are hard to come by where I live but it looks like I’ll be able to get one tomorrow after all.

We believe we got the virus from one of our employees who is vaxxed and boosted…he got together with his extended family at Christmas and all of them are vaxxed and boosted too…all but two who attended their gathering got Covid and have various levels of illness. There are twin infants in that family who are very sick.

I wouldn’t want to navigate omicron without being vaxxed and boosted…I feel like crap and can’t imagine how bad this would be without the shot. My advice is wear a mask…an n95 if you can get one and stay the heck away from people.

[Aristus]

6. People, just wear a fucking mask, will you.

My clinic schedule has gone from a daily average of nineteen patients to about thirty patients, about half of whom are coming in for COVID-19 testing.

My team and I are getting a little worn out. Pretend it’s March 2020 again; mask, wash hands, social distance, etc.

No one wants things to get back to normal more than I do. But it’s not going to happen just because you pretend that things are already back to normal. There’s no fake-it-till-you-make-it with deadly diseases.

[Hortensis]

7. Inadvertently humorous given BeckyDem's OP "France detects" new variant."

"France detects new COVID-19 variant 'IHU', more infectious than Omicron: All we know about it"

Of course more infectious may not equate at all to "fastest spreading." I'm feeling kind of charitable toward Omicron, a real sweetheart compared to Delta. We'll see about IHU.