Omicron spreading across US as death toll nears 800,000

California has reimposed mask mandates as the Omicron variant spreads across the US and the national death toll approaches 800,000.

Air China flight crew members wear protective suits as they arrive at Los Angeles International Airport. Picture: AFP

California has reimposed mask mandates as the Omicron variant spreads across the US and the national death toll from the pandemic approaches 800,000.

California became the second big US state after New York on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) to reimpose an indoor mask mandate regardless of vaccination status, as the most populous US states seeks to head off a 53 per cent jump in daily cases to almost 6400 over the past fortnight.

“Californians have done this before, and we believe we can do it again,” state health adviser Mark Ghaly said, referring to the state’s previous, 12-month mandate, one of the nation’s longest, which ran to June 2021.

Hours earlier the director of the US Centre for Disease Control, Rochelle Walensky, revealed 43 people with the Omicron variant had been detected across 25 US states, 80 per cent of whom were fully vaccinated.

“Most people experienced only mild symptoms, which is what we would expect from a group of fully vaccinated individuals,” she said, in comments that came after the UK revealed the world’s first known death from Omicron since the new strain emerged a month ago.

US state and federal governments have struggled to contain the coronavirus pandemic, and the nation’s vaccination program has fallen behind other developed nations despite federal and state mandates.

More than 797,000 Americans have died from or with Covid-19, according to Our World in Data, ensuring the total will exceed 800,000 within days, given a daily toll of 1100, up 28 per cent over the past fortnight.

Three quarters of all deaths were among people aged over 65. “For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to Covid-19 [95 per cent of the total], on average, there were four additional conditions or causes per death,” the CDC said.

More than 146 million Americans, about 44 per cent of the population, have now been infected.

As new Covid-19 cases soar – up 37 per cent to 119,000 in a week – some of the largest US hospital systems have dumped vaccine mandates for staff after a federal judge temporarily halted the Biden administration mandate for healthcare workers.

“It’s been a mass exodus, and a lot of people in the healthcare industry are willing to go and shop around,” said Wade Symons, an employee-benefits lawyer and head of consulting firm Mercer’s US regulatory practice.

Thousands of nurses have left the industry or lost their jobs rather than get vaccinated, constraining supply at a time of growing demand for staff, according to hospital executives, public health authorities and nursing groups.

“If you get certain healthcare facilities that don’t require it, those could be a magnet for those people who don’t want the vaccine. They’ll probably have an easier time attracting labour,” Mr Symons added.

A separate rule requiring workers in businesses with more than 100 employees, affecting about 84 million people, to be vaccinated was suspended by the federal court in November, pending an appeal by the Biden administration.

Nationally, about 28 per cent of Americans aged over 18 were yet to be fully vaccinated, a similar share among the workers at 2000 hospitals across the country, according to a recent survey by the CDC.

President Joe Biden’s top Covid-19 adviser, Anthony Fauci, last week flagged a change in the definition of “fully vaccinated” from two to three doses, amid fears “the unboosted” will become a source of infection in the community.