US crosses 800,000 deaths as Omicron threat looms

WASHINGTON • The United States, the country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, has crossed 800,000 Covid-19 deaths, a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University showed.

The figure is greater than the entire population of several states, including North Dakota and Alaska.

Around 450,000 of the deaths occurred this year, despite highly effective vaccines that were first authorised in December last year and widely available by springtime.

The vast majority of the deaths were of unvaccinated people.

"As we mark the tragic milestone of 800,000 American deaths due to Covid-19, we remember each person and the lives they lived, and we pray for the loved ones left behind," President Joe Biden said in a statement.

"To heal, we must remember. We must also act," he said. "As we head into the winter and confront a new variant, we must resolve to keep fighting this virus together."

The proportion of coronavirus cases in the United States caused by the Omicron variant has increased sharply and may portend a significant surge in infections as soon as next month, according to new data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

During the seven-day period that ended last Saturday, Omicron accounted for 2.9 per cent of cases across the country, up from 0.4 per cent in the previous week, according to agency projections released on Tuesday. In the region comprising New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, the percentage of Omicron infections had already reached 13.1 per cent.

In a briefing on Tuesday with state and local health officials and representatives of public health labs across the nation, CDC officials warned of two possible scenarios. The first was a tidal wave of infections, both Omicron and Delta, arriving as soon as next month, just as influenza and other winter respiratory infections peak.

"The early signals say there are going to be waves coming," said Mr Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, who was on the call. "We are already expecting an uptick, just because we have seen a lot of respiratory viruses already this fall, including RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which was extensive."

Federal health officials also proposed a second scenario of a smaller surge in Omicron cases occurring in the spring. It was unclear which forecast is more likely.

Early evidence about the variant has only begun to emerge, and it remains unclear how often infections with Omicron lead to hospitalisations or deaths. The variant seems able to partially dodge the body's immune defences, but scientists have not yet determined to what degree vaccination and prior infection may safeguard individuals from severe disease.

Last week, the CDC reported that of the 43 known infections detected in the US in the first eight days of this month, 34 of the patients had been fully vaccinated when they first started showing symptoms or tested positive. Only about one-third of the 43 people had travelled internationally in the two weeks before their diagnosis, indicating some level of community spread of the variant.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, NYTIMES