About 126,000 Americans hospitalized with COVID-19
An estimated 126,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Of those patients, about one-sixth -- or 21,000 -- are in intensive care units.
The spread of the omicron variant is pushing the U.S. closer to the hospitalization record set last winter when 140,000 patients with the virus were hospitalized .
![](https://s.abcnews.com/images/Politics/covid-1-rt-er-220106_1641501499207_hpMain.jpg)
Meanwhile, the country is averaging 554,000 new COVID-19 cases every day, a five-fold increase from a month ago, federal data shows.
Over the last week, the U.S. has reported about 3.88 million COVID-19 infections, which averages out to about six Americans testing positive every second.
-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos