U.S. COVID surge a "big risk": report

LONDON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- COVID-19 is spreading again across the United States, driven by factors including the recent holidays and fewer precautions, British newspaper The Guardian has reported.

Vaccine booster uptake has been "pitiful," Neil Sehgal, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, was quoted as saying in the report published on Sunday.

Antiviral uptake has been low, and few mandates on masking, vaccination and testing have resumed in the face of the winter surge, which is once again putting pressure on health systems, said the report.

New COVID hospital admissions in the United States are now at the fourth-highest rate of the pandemic, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Hospitals are at maximum capacity," Brendan Williams, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, was quoted as saying while speaking of his region's current rates.

"I'm not sure what the trajectory of this thing's going to be, but I am worried," he said.

In the past week, COVID-19 deaths in the United States rose by 44 percent, from 2,705 in the week ending Jan. 4 to 3,907 in the week ending Jan. 11.