Thousands of flights canceled globally as Omicron mars Christmas weekend
NEW YORK, Dec 25: Commercial airlines around the world canceled more than 4,500 flights over the Christmas weekend, as a mounting wave of COVID-19 infections driven by the Omicron variant created greater uncertainty and misery for holiday travelers.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2: The United States has set several new records in COVID-19 indicators as the pandemic enters its third year, and health experts have warned of a "tidal wave" of the pandemic in 2022.
The country shattered daily COVID-19 cases record again as over 580,000 daily cases were recorded nationwide on Thursday, according to the latest data of Johns Hopkins University.
The single-day case count broke records several times this week, amounting to the highest figure since the onset of the pandemic in the country.
Over the past week, over 2,700,000 new cases and more than 9,000 new deaths were added to the tallies, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The weekly increase of cases also registered a new pandemic high, surpassing the previous record set in the first week of 2021.
The country is averaging about 320,000 new cases daily, according to data updated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Thursday. The 7-day average of daily cases also marked a new high.
There were three consecutive days this week that daily COVID-19 cases in the United States hit nearly half a million, according to CDC data.
The Omicron-fueled surge in the United States has also let the number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 soar to record high.
During the week of Dec. 22 to 28, an average of 378 children aged 17 and under were admitted to hospitals per day due to COVID-19, a 66.1 percent increase from the week before, and a new record for hospitalized children with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to CDC data.
So far, over 7.5 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 in the United States, representing 1 in 10 children nationwide, according to the latest report of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.
COVID-19 cases among U.S. children are "extremely high and increasing", according to the report.
Experts are worried about COVID-19 spreading ahead of school reopenings next week. Some schools in the country have decided to go virtual for the first two weeks due to the surge in cases.
The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has caused disruptions nationwide.
Airlines cancelled over 2,400 flights on Saturday, CNN reported. More than 13,000 flights have been cancelled since Christmas Eve.
Top U.S. infectious disease adviser Anthony Fauci said earlier this week that the surge in the COVID-19 Omicron variant in the United States would likely peak by the end of January.
The United States has recorded more than 54.7 million COVID-19 cases with over 825,000 related deaths as of Saturday afternoon, according to the real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Airlines in the US have canceled hundreds of flights worldwide amid the spike in Omicron cases.
United, Delta and other U.S. airlines have canceled more than 600 Christmas Eve flights as a surge in COVID-19 cases impacts their staff, reported CBS News.
A quarter of the more than 4,000 flights canceled worldwide on Friday and Saturday were in the US, reported BBC quoting the website Flightaware.
The cancellations came as the Transportation Safety Administration said the number of people traveling for the holiday is returning to pre-pandemic levels.
"The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation," a United Airlines spokesperson told CBS News in a statement.
"As a result, we've unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport."
As of late Friday afternoon, 627 flights within, to and from the U.S previously scheduled for December 24 have been canceled, according to FlightAware. United had canceled over 175 flights, Delta called off 150, and JetBlue scrubbed 72, data from the real-time tracking service showed.
Airlines in the US are continuing to be hit hard by cancellations as a spike in Omicron variant cases causes global travel disruption over Christmas. A quarter of the more than 4,000 flights cancelled worldwide on Friday and Saturday were in the US, according to the website FlightAware.
