A record 1 million people in the US were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Monday, according to Bloomberg.
According to the latest data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, more than 103,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, the first time in nearly four months.
The previous single-day record was around 591,000 cases.
On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech’s booster vaccine against the novel coronavirus for 12- to 15-year-old adolescents.
Over the past seven-day period, US health authorities reported 2.14 million of new COVID-19 infections with anaverage per day count reaching nearly 320,000 amid the growing prevalence of the Omicron variant.
Omicron was first detected in South Africa in late November. The World Health Organization designated it a "variant of concern" due to an exceptionally high number of mutations. Despite multiple travel bans on Africa, the new variant has since been detected in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Health experts from various countries say the Omicron variant is much more transmissible, but produces milder symptoms.