COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have reached the highest level since early last year, eclipsing daily averages from the recent delta-fueled surge, after the newer omicron variant spread wildly through the country and caused record-shattering case counts.
, chief of the mortality-statistics branch at the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.were widely available, when the daily average reached 3,400. More recently, the delta variant triggered a peak just above 2,100 in late September. Omicron has since muscled delta aside and now accounts for nearly every known COVID-19 case, the CDC has estimated.
A man is tested for the coronavirus at a drive-through testing site as the Omicron variant continues to spread through the country in Houston, Texas, U.S., December 29, 2021. A surge in at-home testing, for example, is largely not counted in state case reports, said Beth Blauer, the data lead for the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which compiles pandemic data. This means the huge number of omicron cases reported—the seven-day average topped 800,000 this month, more than triple the prior record from a year ago—is still likely undercounting the true number by a huge margin, Ms. Blauer said.