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White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned Wednesday that the U.S. should not take reports of milder disease from the omicron variant of the coronavirus as a "signal that we can pull back from" health restrictions and recommendations. Speaking at a White House COVID-19 task force briefing, the nation's top infectious disease expert said multiple sources of preliminary data indicate a decreased severity in disease from the variant of concern. However, he said, scientists need more "definitive assessment of similarity with longer-term follow-up" in the U.S. and in different countries. (Musto, 1/5)

A bevy of other factors, too, can influence the magnitude of protection that’s tickled out by a breakthrough: age and health status; vaccine brand, dosing, and timing; the genetic makeup of the variant. (Most people have no way of knowing for certain whether they caught Delta, Omicron, or another SARS-CoV-2 flavor.) And while each dose of a particular vaccine offers essentially identical amounts of immunity-titillating stuff, actual infections don’t serve up the same dose to every person they hit. “The amount of heterogeneity in people’s immune responses is just incredible,” Taia Wang, an immunologist at Stanford, told me. Some recently infected people might experience only a modest bump in protection—which might not be enough to meaningfully stave off another infection in the not-so-distant future. (Wu, 1/5)

While the highly transmissible Omicron variant continues to drive up Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations -- and the numbers are likely to get worse before they get better -- health experts say it's critical Americans continue safe practices to prevent infections. "I don't buy the idea that we are all going to get Omicron and, therefore, just give up trying. I think that's wrong," Dr. Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday. It's likely that "the next month is going to be awful," he said. But this does not mean that everyone should assume they will catch the virus, he said, noting the pattern of Omicron infections in the UK and South Africa. (Caldwell, 1/6)

California is struggling to staff hospitals and classrooms as an astonishing spike in coronavirus infections sweeps through the state. The fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 is sidelining exposed or infected health care workers even as hospital beds fill with patients and “some facilities are going to be strapped,” Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Wednesday. (Melley and Gecker, 1/6)

New York City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi said the Covid data suggests the city hasn’t yet hit a peak in the omicron-fueled spike of coronavirus cases in recent weeks. Cases and hospitalizations are still increasing and “I expect that will continue in the near term, meaning the next days to weeks,” Chokshi said in a Covid briefing on Wednesday. (Banjo and Levin, 1/5)

The Utah Department of Health on Wednesday reported 7,247 new coronavirus cases — the most cases ever reported in a single day throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. And even that number is likely an undercount, state epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen told reporters in a conversation over Zoom, as people are using at-home tests more often. “Omicron has changed the landscape since its arrival last month,” the state health department said in a statement, referring to the rapidly spreading coronavirus variant. “The number of cases we are reporting today is more than the total number of cases we reported over the first 68 days of the pandemic, combined.” (Pierce and Jacobs, 1/5)

The Michigan health department reported 27,563 new coronavirus cases over a two-day period Wednesday, an average of 13,673 cases per day, the highest daily average since the start of the pandemic. This brings Michigan to 1,595,919 total confirmed cases.Another 277 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported Wednesday, 165 of which were identified in a regular vital records review. This increases the state's COVID-19 death toll to 27,563. (Marini, 1/5)

Massachusetts surpassed 20,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, a grim milestone reached days after the state entered the third calendar year of the pandemic. With 54 new COVID-19-related fatalities reported, a total of 20,008 people have died since March 2020, when an 87-year-old Winthrop man became the state’s first confirmed death, according to the Department of Public Health. The state also reported 27,612 confirmed COVID-19 cases Wednesday. (Saltzman, 1/5)

Since mid-December, when cases began to surge, through Wednesday, Black residents in Maryland made up 47 percent of new cases while making up 31 percent of the state’s overall population. White residents made up 37 percent of infections, and Asian residents 4 percent, state data show. The disproportionate impact of virus infections on Black residents may be most stark in Maryland but also exists regionwide, according to a Washington Post data analysis. And children are being hospitalized in record numbers, most of them too young to be vaccinated. Kids under 12 made up 70 percent of infections at Children’s National Hospital in D.C. as of Tuesday afternoon, said Roberta Lynn DeBiasi, the hospital’s chief of the division of infectious diseases. (Portnoy, 1/5)

Florida has been averaging more than 54,000 new coronavirus cases a day for the past week, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest update on Tuesday. That's more than double the daily average the state saw during the peak of its delta surge last summer. Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist with the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, said the latest daily average is also about 25 times higher than what Florida was reporting just a month ago. (Colombini, 1/5)

As the latest Covid surge intensifies, state Public Health officials are running an “isolation hotel’’ for virus patients who are homeless or in living situations where disease spread is more likely. State health officials said Wednesday that the metro Atlanta facility, which was not identified, has capacity for 50 people, along with additional space in trailers if needed. The state effort renews the public Covid isolation effort that local agencies, with state and city funding, ran from April 2020 to June 2021 in an Atlanta hotel. (Miller, 1/5)

The state’s top health official has tested positive for COVID-19, making her one of at least 15,000 people in the state to experience a re-infection .Fully vaccinated and boosted, State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box took a rapid test Tuesday after she started experiencing symptoms Monday night, Indiana Department of Health officials said in an email. Her symptoms included coughing, muscle aches and a sore throat. Box also underwent a PCR test that will be sent for sequencing to determine whether she has been infected with the omicron variant. (Rudavsky, 1/5)