US hits new daily record with over 1 million fresh COVID infections

The United States has set a new single-day record with over one million fresh coronavirus infections recorded in the country.

Data from the Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource centre showed that the US “reported 1,082,549 new confirmed cases and 1,688 deaths” for Monday.

With the latest update, the US has now confirmed a total of 56,697,387 infections, including 829,091 deaths.

According to The Guardian, the new figure comes days after a previous daily record of 590,000 cases.

The development comes amid concerns of high transmissibility linked to the Omicron COVID variant.

The index case of Omicron was detected in South Africa in November, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had designated it as a “variant of concern”.

Although the US had imposed a travel ban on eight southern African countries over concerns related to the Omicron variant, the ban was lifted on December 31.

The affected countries are South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Announcing the suspension of the travel ban, Kevin Munoz, a White House spokesperson, had said the decision was recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.