Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
For the first time in two months, the U.S. is averaging more than 100,000 new COVID-19 cases each day, shortly after millions of Americans travelled for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The seven-day moving average of new cases was 121,437 as of Saturday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Prior to this week, the U.S. last topped the 100,000-cases-a-day mark in early October.
Also on the rise is the number of COVID-19 deaths, with a seven-day average of 1,651 people dying from the virus each day as of Saturday, the JHU data showed. Average daily deaths haven't been this high in more than a month.
The vast majority of new cases in the U.S. continue to be from the Delta variant, but U.S. health officials have detected the new Omicron coronavirus variant in at least 16 states as of Saturday.
The first case was found in California on Wednesday, and by the weekend the variant had been identified in 15 other states: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The Omicron variant has been alarming officials because early indications show it could be more contagious than the original strain, and the significant number of mutations it carries poses a potential risk of reducing some of the effectiveness the current vaccines provide. Scientists are working to determine the severity and transmissibility of Omicron -- but that could take weeks, officials have said.
Still, the U.S. is more equipped now to deal with the newly detected variant than it was during the onset of the pandemic, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Thursday.
"We are in such a different place now than we were one year ago because we've learned a lot more. We have vaccines available. We have far more tests available, and what we've got to do to get through this winter is to make sure that we are doubling down on our vaccination strategy," Murthy told CNN.
The surgeon general stressed that even though there's a lot to learn about the new variant, mitigation efforts, including masks and hand hygiene combined with physical distancing, remain effective in providing some protection.
Just under 60% of the total U.S. population is fully vaccinated and nearly 23% of those have received a booster, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While the Omicron variant has the potential to become the dominant strain in the U.S., the Delta variant continues to show up in 99.9% of coronavirus cases, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC.
"We know what we need to do against Delta, and that is get vaccinated, get boosted if you're eligible and continue all of those prevention measures, including masking. And those are very likely to work against the Omicron variant," Walensky told CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The Delta variant managed to take over the entire nation in the early weeks of summer, changing the outlook as vaccines were rolling out and becoming more widely available. The variant continues to rage in hotspots across the country.
More than 59,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19, according to data from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And overall, hospitalizations have been on the rise for more than three weeks.
The World Health Organization said the Delta variant has outcompeted other variants in most countries -- making it the most common strain in much of the world.
"Even if the Omicron strain doesn't turn out to be any worse, we are losing close to a thousand people every day from the Delta variant, and that in and of itself is a reason for people to get boosted," Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told CNN earlier this week.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said earlier this week that traveling during the holidays is OK -- but getting vaccinated and boosted are a must.
"Just as I said and I'll say it again, if you have a vaccinated situation, enjoy the holidays with your family in a family setting," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a CNN Global Town Hall.
For international travelers, proof of a negative COVID-19 test within one day of departure for the U.S. will be required as of Monday, the Biden administration announced Thursday. Previously a test could be taken up to three days before entering the country.
Plus, any foreign national who travels to the U.S. must be fully vaccinated, though there is no vaccination requirement for American citizens for air travel, either globally or domestically.
However, the White House said this week that a vaccine requirement for domestic travel remained on the table as an option for the future.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.