The highly transmissible Omicron subvariant, known as BA.2, has become the dominant version among new U.S. cases.
As of Sunday, the United States was averaging more than 31,000 cases a day, an increase of 3 percent over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database, just a fraction of the height of the Omicron winter surge.
Still, New York City and Washington, D.C., are among the places seeing steeper increases than the nation overall, though their average numbers of new cases remain far lower than recent peaks, too. Prominent officials in both cities, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mayor Eric Adams of New York, have tested positive in recent days, as have some Broadway stars.
A handful of colleges and universities in the country have reinstated mask mandates as they battle outbreaks on campus. On Monday, the city of Philadelphia announced it would soon reinstate an indoor mask mandate.
Shanghai recorded about 26,100 new symptomatic and asymptomatic cases on Sunday, China’s National Health Commission said on Monday, accounting for more than 94 percent of about 27,500 cases that the health authorities recorded throughout mainland China.
The State Department has also advised Americans not to travel to Hong Kong because of the restrictions imposed by the city under the direction of the central Chinese government as the Chinese territory has struggled to contain the wave of cases there.
Covid Updates: U.S. Watching Uptick in Cases Closely
The new White House Covid czar, Dr. Ashish Jha, said that hospitalizations remained very low and that he was not overly concerned. The U.S. State Department ordered some workers to leave Shanghai.
Follow the latest updates on the coronavirus, the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron and mask mandates.
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