More than a million cases of Covid-19 in one day, a world record

The United States recorded more than one million daily cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a record number just after the year-end holiday.

A total of 1,082,549 new cases of coronavirus have been reported, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, as the highly contagious omicron variant continues to spread across the country.

This new daily number brings to 5,6189.547 the total number of confirmed cases in the United States since the start of the pandemic. In total, the virus has killed at least 827,748 people in the country.

Hospitalizations of confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19 reached an average of 97,855 over a seven-day period on Monday, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. This number is up 41% in the past two weeks, but is lower than the peak of 137,510 recorded on January 10, 2021.

The emergence of the omicron variant has led to the cancellation of thousands of flights during the holiday season and caused some businesses and schools to consider temporary closures. Several major banks on Wall Street asked their employees to work from home during the first weeks of January.