New York shattered another record on Christmas eve with 49,708 new COVID-19 cases, breaking its previous top figure by thousands as one-in-seven tests come back positive in the Empire State.
It's more than double the seven-day average the state reported during last winter's surge, which peaked at 19,942 cases January 14.
The latest results reinforce New York's place as America's Omicron variant epicenter, although hospitalizations remain far lower than they were at the height of the first wave during spring 2020.
Another 36,454 cases were confirmed Christmas Day in New York, though that figure is likely lower lower due to labs being closed on the holiday.
Positivity rates have also skyrocketed, with 14 percent of tests coming back positive, Governor Kathy Hochul said Sunday as the state struggles to get a grip on the virus.
New York shattered another record on Christmas eve with 49,708 new COVID-19 cases, breaking its previous top figure by thousands as one-in-seven tests come back positive in the Empire State
New York Governor Kathy Hochul during a Friday press conference struck a note of optimism about the new variant, despite surging cases
'As we come home from holiday gatherings, it is as important as ever to take precautions to limit the spread of COVID-19 this season,' Hochul said in a statement. 'Wear your mask, wash your hands, and if you haven't yet, get vaccinated and boosted.
'The vaccine is the best tool we have to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe as we head into the new year. Take advantage of having it readily available and get yours today.'
New York's latest data indicates 4,891 people are hospitalized statewide with the virus, including 880 in the intensive care unit. Right now, 501 people are intubated.
It's significantly less than the 18,825 New Yorkers hospitalized April 9, 2020, during the height of Covid's first wave. Last winter's wave peaked January 19 with 9,273 cases.
The super-spreading Omicron variant - believed to be less severe than previous strains - is driving the latest wave and was detected in 63 percent of analyzed cases during the past five days.
Hochul during a Christmas Eve press conference struck a note of optimism about the new variant.
'This is not Delta,' she told reporters. 'This is Omicron, which thus far has demonstrated that it's not as severe in its impact. This is not the same situation we had in March 2020 or even last winter’s surge. We’ve had more testing. We’ve had more opportunities.'
The super-spreading Omicron variant - believed to be less severe than previous strains - is driving the latest wave and was detected in 63 percent of analyzed cases during the past five days.
Pictured: a person takes a COVID-19 test in Times Square as the Omicron variant continues to spread throughout the state
On Friday, Hochul also said that essential workers in New York now only have to isolate for five days after they test positive for COVID if they're vaccinated and have suffered a so-called breakthrough infection. She says she is doing so to try and tackle staffing shortages blamed on current 10 day isolation rules.
The new rule applies to fully vaccinated workers who are asymptomatic, as well as those who suffered mild symptoms, and have not suffered a fever for at least 72 hours.
Meanwhile, desperate New Yorkers spent their Christmas Eve scrambling for COVID tests as infections driven by the Omicron variant surged across the Empire State.
Astonishing photos show how police had to keep the peace at a city-sponsored truck in Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, on Friday morning while city officials handed out 2,000 free Binax COVID home testing kits.
Crowds gathered around a truck handing out free COVID home tests in Brooklyn Friday, with scores of locals desperate to receive one
A woman appeared angry during Friday's handout on Flatbush Avenue. The bus was one of five stationed across the city's boroughs on Friday, with each distributing 2,000 Binax tests for free
Frantic locals reached out their hands in the hopes of getting one of the 2,000 tests being distributed at the Brooklyn location
Scores of frustrated locals were photographed holding their hands out in the hopes of receiving one of the home testing kids, which the US has been slow to approve, and which are now in extremely short supply amid the latest wave of the virus.
They clustered around the testing bus, with a lucky few receiving one of the precious kits. One woman who didn't receive a kit appeared visibly upset.
Four other buses each giving out 2,000 tests were located in the other four boroughs of the city, with snaps showing a more sedate line waiting to pick one up at the Manhattan location, in Harlem.
New Yorkers - and many Americans - have been spooked by the latest surge in COVID, which saw the state smash its daily diagnoses record for the third day in a row on Friday.
Lines of up to six hours have been reported at testing clinics, with many of those tested also forced to wait days longer than the advertised 24 to 48 hours for their result, ruining the Christmas plans of many.
Dr. Anthony Fauci seemed to admit that the federal government has failed to authorize and distribute a sufficient number of at-home COVID tests despite President Joe Biden's promise to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests amid a surge in new coronavirus cases
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday admitted that the federal government has failed to authorize and distribute a sufficient number of at-home COVID tests, despite President Joe Biden's promise to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests amid a surge in new coronavirus cases.
In an interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl on Sunday morning, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases admitted that coronavirus cases are continuing to soar, leading to an increased demand for COVID tests that the government has failed to prepare for, and now cannot meet.
'Obviously testing, Jon, is going to be very important, that we get a greater capability of testing particularly when the demand for testing is so high,' Fauci said on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 'We're at a combination of the Omicron variant itself, as well as the holiday season where people want to get that extra level of assuredness that they're protected even if you are vaccinated and boosted.
'One of the problems is that that's not going to be totally available to everyone until we get to January, and there are still some issues now of people having trouble getting tested, but we're addressing the testing problem and that very soon will be corrected.
'If you look at the beginning of the administration, the beginning of the year, there were essentially no rapid point of care home tests available,' Fauci continued. 'Now there are over nine of them and counting.
'The production of them has been rapidly upscaled, and yet became of the demand that we have, which in some respects, Jon, is good that we have a high demand... But the situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, Omicron stirring people to get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as the fat of the run on tests during the holiday season ... we've obviously got to do better.
'I mean I think things will improve greatly as we get into January,' he said, 'but that doesn't help us today or tomorrow.'
Long lines have formed outside of health care clinics throughout the country yet again as Americans scramble to get tested for what Fauci has described as an 'extraordinarily contagious' variant.
Confirmed Omicron cases in the country have jumped from 4,644 on Christmas Day to 6,530 on Sunday. That is a 41 percent jump in just 24 hours.
But those numbers represent just a tiny fraction of the true total, because the US only sequences a very small proportion of positive PCR tests to identify which strain caused a person's infection.
The CDC estimates that at least 73 percent of all new COVID infections are being caused by Omicron, with that figure as high as 92 percent in five states including New York and New Jersey.
America has now reported 128,676 new cases of COVID-19 with 27 new deaths reported on Sunday. Deaths have lagged because of Christmas Day, and will likely be higher than usual on Monday as the backlog begins to get recorded.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden promised to deliver 500 million COVID tests to Americans - but had not yet signed a contract to buy them or set up a website so that people can place orders.
'That's not a plan - it's a hope,' Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Time .
'If those tests came in January and February, that could have an impact, but if they are spread out over 10 to 12 months, I'm not sure what kind of impact it is going to have.'
The tests will be delivered by mail to any American who requests them, ABC News reports and a website to request the tests is set to launch in January.
Amazon, Walgreens and CVS have already imposed limits on how many tests each customer can buy because of the surging demand.
On Wednesday, ABC News' World News Tonight anchor David Muir asked the president if that the lack of testing is a failure of his administration despite his promise.
'I don't think it's a failure,' the president said. 'You could argue that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, a month ago... I wish I had thought about ordering' the 500 million tests 'two months ago.
But, he added, 'nothing's been good enough' when it comes to the availability of at-home tests.'
Officials now warn that the virus could infect 140 million people between January and March - 60 percent of all Americans, although 90 per cent of those who catch COVID are predicted to have no symptoms. Three studies published in the last day have confirmed the strain is milder than Delta, and may result in up to 80 per cent fewer hospitalizations.
The third wave of the pandemic caused by Omicron has wrought havoc on Americans' Christmas plans.
Airlines scrapped more than 600 flights Sunday due to weather and the virus surge, with the Biden administration announcing it would lift the ban imposed on eight African countries in response to Omicron on New Year's Eve.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he will limit the number of revelers in Times Square for New Years Eve to 15,000, down from a planned 58,000, and attendees will need to wear masks and show proof of vaccination.
People wait to get a COVID test in New York's Times Square on December 26, with the Omicron variant estimated to be behind at least 92 per cent of new infections in the Empire State and neighboring New Jersey
There is, however, some good news on the horizon. On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration approved a second anti-viral pill, this time from Merck, called molnupiravir.
The agency touted the new drug 'for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in adults with positive results...and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.'
The pill could be 30% effective in treating the infection for high-risk patients, less than previously expected because of the new strain, according to Merck executive Dr. Eliav Barr.
'The Omicron variant is primarily different from the other types of Covid at the spike protein,' Barr told CNN. 'Our drug works in completely different part of the virus. So we're very optimistic that the drug will continue to be effective against Omicron, and we're studying that right now.'
There have been other caveats to the medication. There have been warnings about its effect on pregnant women and their fetuses, which is still unknown.
Some fear that molnupiravir, which causes the virus to mutate and attack itself, could create another strain that proves toxic to people.
'The fact is that most mutations are probably lethal to the organism, but a couple of them are going to end up being beneficial for the organism, and we've seen that with the successive different variants that have come out,' Defense Health Agency director Dr. Peter Weina told the Daily Caller.
Pfizer already has approval for its virus pill, but availability for the medication will depend on where you live, according to Bloomberg.
The federal government will parse out the dosages on a per capita basis with New York getting only 3,108 pills and Wyoming, which has a population of about half a million people, will receive just 100 courses.
'Product will be limited at first and ramp up significantly in the coming months,' the department said. 'An initial 65,000 courses of Paxlovid will be made available for shipment to states and territories and will begin arriving at dispensing sites by the end of December,' the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told the news service.
As the virus rages at home, President Biden plans to lift the travel ban on several African countries.
Now all non-U.S. citizens who had recently been in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi will soon be able to travel to the U.S.
The CDC recommend the change because of promising stats out of Africa.
Data from from South Africa, where the strain was first reported, looks promising.
There was a huge and sudden drop in cases, suggesting Omicron may have quickly run its course. But panic over the new strain continues to prevail across much of the world, with Italy and Spain now ordering people to wear masks outdoors.
Imperial College London on Wednesday found that Omicron is 40 per cent less likely to lead to serious illness than the Delta variant.
Another study by the University of Edinburgh suggested that the new variant could slash hospitalizations by as much as 65 percent, with a third South African study indicating the potential 80 per cent drop in hospitalizations.
Both British studies underlined, however, the importance of vaccines with the Imperial study stating the risk of hospitalization for an unvaccinated person was just 10 percent lower for Omicron than with Delta.
As of Thursday, 72.7 percent of all eligible Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine and 61.7 percent are fully vaccinated.
Of those who are eligible for a booster shot, just 31.5 percent have received one.
Biden acknowledged that there is a lack of at-home testing, saying he wished he had ordered more moths ago before people, like those seen here, had to wait in line at an urgent care center in Queens for a test
Still, Fauci urged Americans on Sunday not to become complacent.
He said that with such a high number of people getting infected with the Omicron variant 'it might override a real diminution in severity.
'So that if you have many, many, many more people with a less level of severity, that might kind of neutralize the positive effect of having less severity when you have so many more people,' he explained, urging people to also keep their masks on on flights.
'I think that the idea of taking masks off, in my mind, is really not something we should even be considering,' Fauci said before actually praising former President Donald Trump for speaking out in favor of the COVID vaccines.
The former president was booed by some of his supporters during an appearance with Bill O'Reilly in Texas last week, when he announced that he received his booster shot.
He later doubled down on his support of the vaccines in an interview with conservative pundit Candace Owens.
In the interview, Trump told Owens that people unvaccinated against coronavirus are the ones getting 'very sick' and encouraged all Americans get the jab all while taking credit for its creation.
'I came up with a vaccine – with three vaccines,' Trump told the Daily Wire host, referring to the development of the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines while he was still president. 'All are very, very good. Came up with three of them in less than nine months. It was supposed to take five to 12 years.'
Owens interjected: 'Yet more people have died under COVID this year, by the way, under Joe Biden, then under you and more people took the vaccine this year. So people are questioning how –'
But the former president interrupted Owens, assuring: 'Oh no, the vaccine work (sic), but some people aren't the ones. The ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take the vaccine. But it's still their choice.'
'And if you take the vaccine, you're protected,' he continued. 'Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it's a very minor form. People aren't dying when they take the vaccine.'
Former President Donald Trump (left) was heckled in Dallas last week for confirming he received his COVID-19 booster shot alongside former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly (right)
In the aftermath, Owens claimed she didn't think Trump's support of the vaccines was nefarious, saying: 'I think he genuinely believes that and he needs to sit down and have a conversation with someone, a larger conversation with someone to really understand what's going on and why so many people are just horrified.'
She blamed Trump's stance on vaccines on him only reading 'mainstream media news' instead of conducting research on 'obscure websites,' and said that the President, who in part won the presidency in 2016 because of his knowledge of social media, is not on the internet.
'I do not believe trump is on the internet, he just relies on typical mainstream sources,' she said.
'People oftentimes forget that, like, how old Trump is,' she said. 'He comes from a generation I've seen a lot of people who are older, have the exact same perspective, like, they came from a time before TV, before internet, before being able to conduct independent research. And everything they read to them that was in a newspaper that was pitched to them, they believed that that was a reality.'
But Fauci on Sunday said he hoped the former president would continue to speak in favor of people getting vaccinated.
'I think that his continuing to say that people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them, in my mind is a good thing,' Fauci told Jonathan Karl. 'I hope he keeps it up.'
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