US Covid hospitalisations top 100K for 1st time since Jan

Hospitalisations are the highest across the South, where every state in the region has a higher portion of its population currently hospitalised with Covid-19 than the national level, Xinhua news agency quoted The Washington Post report as saying on Thursday.   

More than 17,000 people are hospitalised with Covid-19 in Florida, the highest among all US states, followed by Texas with 14,000, the newspaper said.

Amid a raging debate over mask requirements in schools, current paediatric hospitalisations for the disease have reached 2,100 nationwide, topping 2,000 for the first time since August 2020, it said.

According to the report, new Covid-19 cases were being reported across the country at similar levels since January.

However, even as many hospitals are under strain and report shortages of intensive care unit beds, overall deaths are far lower.

The daily average of deaths at the end of January was 3,100 and about 1,100 as of Wednesday, said the report.

As of Friday, the US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 38,374,252 and 633,479, respectively, according to the Johns Hopkins University.