New omicron variants are again driving hospital admissions and deaths higher in recent weeks, causing states and cities to rethink their responses to COVID-19 and the White House to step up efforts to alert the public.
FILE - Travelers wait in long lines at a security checkpoint in Denver International Airport Tuesday, July 5, 2022, in Denver. The Fourth of July holiday weekend jammed U.S. airports with the biggest crowds since the pandemic began in 2020.
Global trends for the two mutants have been apparent for weeks, experts said — they quickly out-compete older variants and push cases higher wherever they appear. Yet Americans have tossed off their masks and jumped back into travel and social gatherings. And they have largely ignored booster shots, which protect against COVID-19's worst outcomes. Courts have blocked federal mask and vaccine mandates, tying the hands of U.S. officials.
“I do recognize that when we return to universal indoor masking to reduce high spread, for many this will feel like a step backwards,” Ferrer said. But she stressed that requiring masks “helps us to reduce risk.” The nation’s brief lull in COVID deaths has reversed. Last month, daily deaths were falling, though they never matched last year’s low, and deaths are now heading up again.
“That would be all hands on deck," Noymer said."People would be like, ‘There’s this crazy new flu that’s killing people in June.’”Instead, simple, proven precautions are not being taken. Vaccinations, including booster shots for those eligible, lower the risk of hospitalization and death — even against the latest variants. But less than half of all eligible U.S.
“I was definitely concerned back then,” she said of the pandemic's early days, with images of body bags on nightly news broadcasts. “Now there’s fatigue, things were getting better and there was a vaccine. So I would say from a scale between one and 10, I’m probably at a four.”