Tonight, the Covid tidal wave that health officials warned about is here. With the US shattering its single-day record of new cases. And the big concern tonight is pediatric hospitalization and childhood infections that are also setting pandemic records. The fast-spreading Omicron variant is being blamed for all of it. The cases doubling every few days, and there is breaking news out of the CDC after facing criticism from top health officials about its guidance for those isolating with Covid. There’s new update on what you should do after testing positive. And we’re seeing long lines of people at testing sites, hospitals and their staffs pushed to the break. One in Fort Lauderdale, Florida was forced to close its maternity ward because of Covid related staffing shortages. It’s not just health care, museums and stores are impacted. Macy’s today announcing it will cut store hours for the rest of the month.
The CDC originally said you should isolate for five days if you test positive. But tonight, they have updated their guidance, they are saying after isolating for five days, if you still have symptoms, you should get a Covid test, but it’s not required. That’s if you can find a Covid test. The positivity rate in Texas is more than thirty-three percent. Omicron is omnipresent. The CDC announcing today that it now makes up ninety-five percent of all cases nationwide. As new Covid cases topped one million, Covid hospitalizations reached more than a hundred thousand nationwide, numbers on par with last summer’s Delta surge. And now Covid cases in kids are higher than at any point in the pandemic. Only thirty-three percent of kids from five to seventeen are fully vaccinated. More than three hundred and twenty-five thousand pediatric cases were reported for the week ending December 30th, and hospitalizations are at the highest they’ve ever been. Six hundred and seventy-two a day, one hundred and fourteen percent increase from last week, all as kids head back to school. The number of patients isn’t the only concern, the surging number of cases means healthcare workers are also getting infected and can’t report to work. With the holiday weekend over, people from California to Texas to New York are waiting in long lines to take a rapid or PCR test, if they’re available. Because of surging cases, more than two hundred and fifteen school districts across the country switched over to remote learning. In Chicago, there might not be any classes tomorrow if the teacher’s union votes tonight to refuse to go to work in person, that’s the nation’s third largest school district.
:::tip omnipresent
- : present in all places at all times. 无处不在的
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:::tip par
- : common level : EQUALITY usually used with on. 同等的
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