January 5, 2021

Jan 4 (Reuters) - The United States set a global record of almost 1 million new coronavirus infections reported on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, nearly double the country's peak hit just a week ago as the highly contagious Omicron variant shows no sign of slowing.

The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has risen nearly 50% in the last week and now exceeds 100,000, a Reuters analysis showed, the first time that threshold has been reached since the winter surge a year ago.

Overall, the United States has seen a daily average of 486,000 cases over the last week, a rate that has doubled in seven days and far outstrips that of any other country. The 978,856 new infections on Monday includes some cases from Saturday and Sunday, when many states do not report.

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