New wave of COVID-19 underway in U.S.: report

Special: Battle Against Novel Coronavirus

Another big COVID-19 wave, fueled by more-transmissible subvariants of Omicron, is underway in the United States, New York Magazine said on Sunday.

Data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that at least 86 percent of Americans now live in communities with high COVID-19 transmission, up from 72 percent the previous week and 57 percent the week before that.

At least 95 percent of Americans now live in areas with substantial transmission; only one percent live in communities where the transmission is estimated to be low.

"It's the fifth time one COVID-19 strain -- or in this case two subvariants -- has generated a large wave of cases in the U.S. as well the country's sixth or even seventh overall wave of infections since the pandemic began," said the report.

This wave of new infections is significantly larger than official case counts suggest. Many, if not most cases, are either being detected using at-home tests that are never reported or are asymptomatic and not being detected at all.