Washington, February 2: The US has hit the highest death rate due to Covid in about a year, the media reported. The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 75,316,209 and 890,528 respectively, according to Johns Hopkins University data. However, it showed that this week the country's Covid death toll rose 39 per cent over the past two weeks, CNBC reported.

The number of deaths from Covid rose to an average of more than 2,400 fatalities per day over the previous seven days as of Monday, the data showed. Experts say that the death rate will continue to increase in the country. Coronavirus Buildup in Lungs Likely Driver of COVID-19 Deaths: Study.

The death rate in the country is more likely to surge, because states with lower vaccination rates got hit later by Omicron and haven't experienced the full brunt of the variant yet, said Jennifer Nuzzo, head of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Covid Resource Center.

States that have not yet peaked in infections will likely do so within the next two weeks, with peak deaths following about two weeks later, added Dr. Scott Braithwaite, Professor of population health and medicine for NYU Langone Health.

The Hopkins data also shows that US cases surged to a pandemic high of close to 1 million new infections a day in mid-January, the report said. The country is now reporting a seven-day average of about 450,000 new cases per day, down 36 per cent over the past two weeks.

Meanwhile, the highly contagious Omicron variant accounted for 99.9 per cent of new weekly Covid-19 infections in the US, according to data updated by the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While the variant is touted as mild, it has led to an increase in hospitalisation straining many healthcare systems. "There's nothing mild about what's going on in our hospital and in our ICUs, particularly if you are unvaccinated or unboosted," Dr. Ken Silverstein, chief physician executive of ChristianaCare, which has three hospitals and more than 1,200 beds, was quoted as saying.

About half as many patients who come in with Covid end up needing intensive care in this wave as compared with previous surges, added Dr. Shereef Elnahal, CEO of Newark, New Jersey-based University Hospital. "It's just so transmissible that the absolute numbers of people needing ventilators looked similar to previous waves," he said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 02, 2022 05:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).