The New York Times (NYT) reported that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases started to rise again as the omicron sub mutation BA.2 spread in the United States.



According to the New York Times, the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States for 7 days as of the 14th was 36,830, up 32% from two weeks ago.



The average daily number of new infections in the United States was 26,992 on 3 days, the lowest in about nine months since July of last year, and it is slowly increasing.



The number of new confirmed cases in the United States, which approached 807,000 on January 14 of this year, has declined sharply since then, but has started to draw an upward curve again.



Twenty states, including all the states in the northeastern part of New York, the largest city, have seen at least a 30% increase in new cases in the last two weeks.



However, with a time lag of 2-3 weeks, the number of hospitalized patients and deaths, which follows the trend of confirmed cases, is still on the decline.



As of the 14th, the average daily hospitalization in the United States was 14,681, down 12% from two weeks ago.



This is the lowest level in two years since April 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic.



During this period, the average daily death toll decreased by 28% to 500.



The re-spread of COVID-19 appears to be due to the spread of its sub-mutation BA.2, which is known to be more contagious than the Omicron mutation.



The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 85.9% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. were BA.2 as of March 3-9.



In New York State in particular, state health officials report that the proportion of new subvariants of BA.2, BA.2.12 and BA.2.12.1, is over 90%.



The New York Times pointed out that this shift was not unexpected, but it came as face-to-face meetings resumed and vaccinations stagnated, as the number of officially counted COVID-19 tests fell.



Even American political leaders and many ordinary citizens want to end quarantine restrictions.



The number of tests per day fell from 2.5 million per day in January this year, at the peak of the spread of Omicron, to about 540,000 at the beginning of this week.



This is because many testing laboratories have closed as the federal government's program to cover the cost of testing for uninsured people has ended, and home testing kits have become more popular, increasing the number of people doing self-tests.



For this reason, there is also concern that the current number of confirmed cases reflects the reality too little.



"Because we can't stay on the red alert all the time, it makes sense that we want to move on to the next one," said Dr Cassandra Pierre, director of public health at Boston Medical Center. "But now is not the time."



(Photo = Getty Images Korea)