U.S. COVID Cases Reach 88 Million as BA.4 & BA.5 Strains of Omicron Escalate

The United States has officially reached 88 million COVID-19 cases. According to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, there have been 88,066,096 COVID-19 cases in the U.S. resulting in 1,018,349 deaths representing a mortality rate of 1.2%. 

In the midst of this both the BA.4 and BA.5 strain of the Omicron variant have become the dominant COVID strains and the FDA is recommending Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to update their vaccines accordingly in anticipation of yet another surge. In recent weeks, it has taken 7-11 days to add 1 million new cases. Will this pace pick up? It could but this could be mitigated if the rise in hospitalizations is not proportionate. COVID hospitalizations remain under 30,000 though it remains to be seen how long this will last.