U.S. hits COVID-19 record highs as pandemic enters third year

A sign of wearing mask is set up during the New Year celebrations at Times Square in New York, the United States, Dec. 31, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Coronavirus cases among U.S. children are "extremely high and increasing", and experts are worried about COVID-19 spreading ahead of school reopenings next week.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- The United States has set several new records in COVID-19 indicators as the pandemic enters its third year, and health experts have warned of a "tidal wave" of the pandemic in 2022.

The country shattered daily COVID-19 cases record again as over 580,000 daily cases were recorded nationwide on Thursday, according to the latest data of Johns Hopkins University.

The single-day case count broke records several times this week, amounting to the highest figure since the onset of the pandemic in the country.

Over the past week, over 2,700,000 new cases and more than 9,000 new deaths were added to the tallies, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The weekly increase of cases also registered a new pandemic high, surpassing the previous record set in the first week of 2021.

A man receives COVID-19 test in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Dec. 30, 2021. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

The country is averaging about 320,000 new cases daily, according to data updated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Thursday. The 7-day average of daily cases also marked a new high.

There were three consecutive days this week that daily COVID-19 cases in the United States hit nearly half a million, according to CDC data.

The Omicron-fueled surge in the United States has also let the number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 soar to record high.

During the week of Dec. 22 to 28, an average of 378 children aged 17 and under were admitted to hospitals per day due to COVID-19, a 66.1 percent increase from the week before, and a new record for hospitalized children with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to CDC data.

So far, over 7.5 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 in the United States, representing 1 in 10 children nationwide, according to the latest report of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.

People, mostly wearing masks, shop at a shopping mall in Santa Clara of San Francisco Bay Area, the United States, Dec. 26, 2021. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)

COVID-19 cases among U.S. children are "extremely high and increasing", according to the report.

Experts are worried about COVID-19 spreading ahead of school reopenings next week. Some schools in the country have decided to go virtual for the first two weeks due to the surge in cases.

The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has caused disruptions nationwide.

Airlines cancelled over 2,400 flights on Saturday, CNN reported. More than 13,000 flights have been cancelled since Christmas Eve.

Top U.S. infectious disease adviser Anthony Fauci said earlier this week that the surge in the COVID-19 Omicron variant in the United States would likely peak by the end of January.

The United States has recorded more than 54.7 million COVID-19 cases with over 825,000 related deaths as of Saturday afternoon, according to the real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.