The highly contagious Omicron variant is smashing Covid records and overwhelming hospitals and health care staff from coast to coast. The number of Americans currently hospitalized with the virus has reached highest level in a year, with providers reporting record surges in cases, new cases are averaging a staggering six hundred forty-eight thousand each day, that’s a two hundred twenty-eight increase from two weeks ago.

Omicron is placing a huge burden on the nation’s healthcare system, here in California, at least six hundred people are being admitted in the hospitals every day. And it shows no signs of slowing down. Some hospitals are turning away ambulances and running low in ICU beds as they confront breaking point, many filled with unvaccinated including young children. With Omicron cases soaring nationwide, so is the stampede for Covid test. Here in New York, more than eleven thousand people remained hospitalized and the demand for testing is still strong. The state has just hit a new daily record of more than ninety thousand cases, leading many New Yorkers anxious. Governor also announced the state is requiring healthcare workers to get boosted, with no testing option. Los Angeles just hit a pandemic record new Covid daily cases. And now California is joining twenty-three other states activating national guards to help. Many hospitals across the nation are canceling surgeries that are not emergency. Starting today New York hospitals, forty in total, are now having to push non-essential procedures for at least two weeks.

:::tip careen

• : move sideways or in an unsteady way. 冲出（失控地）

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:::tip grind to a halt

• : to stop working or moving forward. 停止工作或前行

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