From New York Times, I'm Michael Wabaro. This is a daily.

Today, nearly half a million new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the US.

The US has averaged more than 300,000 new cases a day.

Hospitalizations are also rising fast here.

The highly contagious overconvary is fueling record-breaking infection rates across the

world and the United States.

There are three Americans are testing positive for COVID every second.

I mean, these numbers are absolutely staggering and disrupting basic services.

Thousands of flights had to be canceled from flights to subways in the process.

The fire department says 30% of its EMS personnel is out sick.

Here in the US, new cases are higher than they've ever been during the pandemic.

But here's the thing, deaths are down.

But what it's not doing is killing or hospitalizing those in-effects at the same rate as previous

variants.

I spoke with my colleagues, science writer Carl Zimmer about why that is and what happens

next.

It's Monday, January 3rd.

So Carl, happy new year?

Is it happy new year?

It is a new year like no other.

And yet, it kind of feels familiar.

Right?

...