Coronavirus tally: Rise in COVID cases in Europe fuels concerns it will be followed by new wave in U.S.

A rise in COVID-19 cases in Europe driven by the highly contagious omicron variant is fueling concerns that it will be followed by a new wave of cases in the U.S., which has typically lagged Europe by a matter of weeks. Europe is seeing a fresh rise in cases that involves a subvariant of omicron dubbed BA.2, which is also spreading in the U.S. where it accounted for about 23.1% of all COVID cases in the U.S. in the latest week, according to the CDC, up from 13.7% a week ago. Eric Topol, founder and head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, warned in a Guardian article that the U.S. has repeatedly failed to heed the warnings from Europe that a new surge was occurring. Wastewater sampling sites monitored by the CDC are also signaling a coming rise in cases, the CDC said earlier this week. The U.S. COVID numbers continue to decline for now, however, and the nation is now averaging 31,152 new cases a day, according to a New York Times tracker, down 43% from two weeks ago. The average daily number of hospitalizations stands at 25,553, down 44% from two weeks ago. Deaths are averaging 1,268 a day, down 31% from two weeks ago, but still an undesirably high number. Globally, there have been 463.9 million confirmed cases, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, and 6.05 million deaths. The U.S. leads the world with 79.6 million cases and 968,329 fatalities.