WHO Says Omicron Variant Is Not “Mild” as New COVID Wave Overwhelms Hospitals

We look at the skyrocketing amount of COVID infections. This week saw record numbers of Coronavirus cases, with global cases increasing 70% to 9.5million from last week and the U.S. reporting an unprecedented 1 million cases on Monday. The extraordinary number of cases in the U.S. is filling up hospitals and exhausting healthcare workers. Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency room physician who has been treating coronavirus victims since the outbreak, said that the U.S. reported a single-day record of 1 million new cases on Monday. “We’re much better at treating this disease now,” says Spencer, “but the problem is that the amount of volume that we’re seeing threatens to really wash away any added benefit from either a milder variant or even all that experience that we’ve learned and those tools that we’ve built up over the past few years.” Spencer also critiques the U.S. government’s role in prolonging the pandemic, saying, “Global vaccine inequity has been one of the most profound and disappointing aspects of this pandemic over the past year.”

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