​[오미크론 대유행] ② U.S. ‘one million people a day’… Concerns about medical collapse due to surge in confirmed cases around the world↑

On the 4th (local time), foreign media such as Bloomberg reported that more than 1 million new cases of Corona 19 were confirmed in the United States the day before, citing the Johns Hopkins University Corona 19 tally.

It is the first case not only in the United States but also around the world that more than 1 million new cases have been reported per day in a country. The number of daily confirmed cases outside the United States was the highest in India at 414,000 (May 7 last year).

In addition, in the statistics, not only the number of daily new confirmed cases in the United States but also the average daily number of new cases per week (485,363 as of the 3rd day) doubled in just one week.

In particular, Bloomberg recently pointed out that many Americans prefer to use self-diagnostic kits, and that some cases are not caught by government officials in the official tally. The media interpreted this as meaning that the count of more than 1 million people per day was ‘underestimated’.

In fact, various COVID-19 statistics on that day all counted that the number of confirmed cases in the United States surpassed 1 million on the 3rd, the previous day.

According to the Johnson Hopkins University tally cited by Bloomberg, there were 1,082,549 new cases in one day on the 3rd. Our World in Data, an international statistical site built by researchers at Oxford University in the UK, also had about 1.08 million people.

According to the New York Times (NYT)’s own tally, the number of daily confirmed cases in the United States on that day was 1,017,376, and the weekly average was 488,658. Earlier, on the 30th of last month, the two figures reached a record high of 585,013 and 349,967, respectively.

In the case of the Washington Post (WP), the daily number of confirmed cases in the United States on the 3rd and the average for 7 days were 1,018,170 and 488,166 respectively. WP has also compiled and disclosed the figures on the 4th. According to this, the daily number of confirmed cases in the United States on the 4th decreased slightly to 896,406, but it can be seen that the unprecedented number of confirmed cases continues.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the official statistics of the US administration, released new figures three days after the New Year holiday. In the tally, the number of new daily confirmed cases in the United States jumped from 588,950 a day on the 31st of last month to 828,417 on the 3rd. Although it is a relatively low number compared to other counts, the 7-day average of the same day was the highest with 490,1652 people.

Meanwhile, as the speed of the spread of COVID-19 has accelerated due to the influence of Omicron, several experts are predicting that the peak of the US pandemic will come this month. According to the WP, the U.S. Corona 19 pandemic will peak during the next week (January 9-15) at Columbia University, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) affiliated with Washington Medical University in the U.S. at the end of January. predicted.

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of March 3, the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases worldwide has exceeded 290 million, and the cumulative death toll is around 5.44 million.

According to Our World in Data, as of the 3rd of March, the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world, including the United States, was 2.44 million. In particular, on the same day, there were 1 million confirmed cases in all of Europe. Spain, where the number of new confirmed cases was the second after the United States, recorded 372,000 a day, followed by 187,000 in the UK.

On the other hand, concerns about medical overload have grown in countries around the world. As the absolute number of confirmed cases increases, the number of hospitalized patients is also increasing.

In the United States, the number of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations surpassed 100,000 again for the first time in four months. The weekly average of Johns Hopkins University statistics recorded 93,281 cases, a 35% increase from two weeks. It is reported that frontline hospitals in densely populated areas such as the eastern and western regions are in an emergency state every day.

In an emergency speech on the 4th, U.S. President Joe Biden promised to double the purchase of Pfizer’s pill-type COVID-19 treatment, Paxrovid, which had recently been urgently approved by the U.S. pharmaceutical authority. President Biden emphasized that Paxrovid will reduce the number of hospitalized and seriously ill patients, and he will purchase and secure 20 million course doses (5 days per course, 30 tablets in total) by September.

In the case of the UK, as the number of medical staff became insufficient due to the rapid increase in the number of confirmed cases, the National Health Service (NHS), the national medical system, decided to shift its response posture to a ‘wartime situation’.