COVID-19 updates: Classes in Chicago canceled for 4th day
Chicago Public Schools has been in talks with teachers over COVID-19 safety.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 837,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 62.5% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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- 1 in 5 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19
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- CDC director responds to criticism of COVID-19 guidance
- Florida allowed up to 1 million COVID-19 tests to expire, official says
US reports 1 million daily COVID cases after holiday backlog
More than 1 million new COVID-19 cases were reported in the United States on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The 1,082,549 new infections were about double last week's record daily cases, according to the university's data. This is likely due to a reporting backlog of cases from holiday testing.
The US recorded 1,688 deaths related to COVID-19 on Monday, below the record high of 4,442, set on Jan. 20, 2021, according to the university's data.
US reports record 325,000 new pediatric COVID infections last week
A record 325,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 last week amid the nation's most significant COVID-19 infection surge yet, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
Children accounted for about 17.4% of last week's reported COVID-19 cases, down from previous weeks, when children accounted for more than a quarter of all new cases.
A total of nearly 7.9 million children have tested positive for the virus, since the onset of the pandemic.
ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos
New York looking into COVID-19 hospitalizations that began for other reasons
New York's hospitals will be required to report a breakdown of how many COVID-19 patients were admitted due to the coronavirus and how many were admitted for other needs and only discovered they were infected during their stays.
During a COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul cited anecdotal reports of as many as 50% of patients at some hospitals testing positive for the virus who were actually admitted for other reasons, such as car accidents.
"I just want to always be honest with New Yorkers about how bad this is," Hochul said. "Yes, the sheer number of people infected are high, but I want to see whether or not the hospitalizations correlate with that."
She continued, "And I'm anticipating to see that at least a certain percentage overall are not being treated for COVID."
Hospitals will begin reporting their breakdowns Tuesday, but it's unclear how soon the data will be publicly available.
-ABC News' Joshua Hoyos and Will McDuffie
Surgeon general warns next few weeks 'will be tough'
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned that COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations will continue to increase as the omicron variant rapidly spreads across the country.
"The next few weeks are going to be tough for us," he told ABC's "The View" on Monday. "We’re already seeing record levels of cases, and we're seeing hospitalizations starting to tick up. We're seeing some of our hospital systems getting strained at this point."
Information from South Africa and the United Kingdom indicates omicron could be less severe than previous COVID-19 variants, Murthy said.
"We’re still going to see a lot of people get sick and a lot of hospitalizations, but the overall severity may end up being significantly lower," he said.
Murthy said both South Africa and the U.K. "had a very rapid rise, but then they had a very steep fall" in cases
"I'm hoping that that’s what happens here too," he added.
-ABC News' Joanne Rosa
CDC director responds to criticism of COVID-19 guidance
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is standing by her agency's new quarantine and isolation guidance for COVID-19, which the nation’s largest association of physicians has criticized as "confusing."
The CDC updated its guidelines on Dec. 27, saying asymptomatic people who test positive for COVID-19 should self-isolate for five days rather than 10. In a scathing statement released Wednesday night, the American Medical Association (AMA) said the new recommendations "are risking further spread of the virus."
"The American people should be able to count on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for timely, accurate, clear guidance to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. Instead, the new recommendations on quarantine and isolation are not only confusing, but are risking further spread of the virus," the AMA's president, Dr. Gerald E. Harmon, said in the statement. "With hundreds of thousands of new cases daily and more than a million positive reported cases on January 3, tens of thousands -- potentially hundreds of thousands of people -- could return to work and school infectious if they follow the CDC’s new guidance on ending isolation after five days without a negative test."
But Walensky defended the new guidance, telling ABC News' Cecelia Vega in an interview Friday on "Good Morning America" that the CDC "make[s] these recommendations in the context of science, in the context of ongoing epidemiology and in the context of what is feasible in collaboration with our public health and local and state public health partners."
"I've read the AMA statement and I have deep respect for the AMA," Walenskey said, "but I will also say we've heard a lot of support for ongoing guidance from public health partners, from other clinical and laboratory partners as well."
Walensky referenced "dozens of studies" that have shown a COVID-19 patient is most infectious in the one to two days before symptoms and the two to three days after symptoms.
"So by five days after your symptoms, the vast majority of your contagiousness is really behind you," she said. "And what we say at day five then is, are your symptoms gone? Are you feeling better? Is your cough gone, sore throat gone? And if so, then it is safe to go out if you are wearing a mask all the time. And that means not going out to restaurants, not going out to gyms, not going out and visiting grandma, but really conscientiously wearing your mask for those last five days."
Walensky noted that people may choose to take an antigen or at-home test at day five, if they have access to one. But it's not required.
"If that test is positive, you should stay home for those extra five days. But if that test is negative you should go out and continue to wear your mask," she said. "You know, these tests are actually not authorized for the purpose of evaluating contagiousness."