The United States has reported over 1 million new COVID-19 cases on Monday alone. This is a single-day record as the new Omicron variant surge.

According to a report, a total of 1,082,549 cases were reported – showing how highly-contagious the omicron variant is.

The record tally might be because of states working through a backlog of cases as reporting was paused in some places over the holiday weekend, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Still, the seven-day average of daily new cases in the US hit 480,273 on Jan. 3, according to Johns Hopkins data. 

Even though the number of cases has increased sporadically, the number of hospitalization and death has stayed “comparatively low” according to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a White House briefing.

“We have the tools to protect people from severe illness due to omicron — if people choose to use the tools,” Biden said ahead of a briefing by the White House COVID-19 team.

The president also outlined newly measured aimed at fighting the pandemic in the country due to the surge in the number of reported cases propelled by the Omicron variant.

According to recent researches from experts on the subject, the omicron variant may lead to less severe illness even though it could cause a large number of individuals to fall sick at once which is enough to overwhelm the healthcare system.

So far, vaccines are still the preventive measures as they prevent hospitalization and death. Reports have it that those who are yet to be vaccinated are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized if infected.

As of Dec. 30th, over 200 million people in the United States have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus according to the CDC.