New US COV cases halved in a week

Daily COVID-19 cases across the United States have dropped 47 percent in the past week — offering a glimmer of hope that the Omicron winter surge is finally starting to ease.

There were about 717,800 new cases reported in on Monday, statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University show. The average daily infection count has been sitting at about 800,000 over the past week.

That reflects a sharp drop from the record 1.4 million new cases reported just one week earlier on Jan. 10.

There were 1,122 new deaths recorded Monday across the country, the Johns Hopkins data show. And the number of hospitalizations were at 156,676 as of Monday, according to Department of Health and Human Services figures.