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A4 The BulleTin • Tuesday, decemBer 21, 2021 COVID-19 Omicron now 73% of new U.S. cases BY MIKE STOBBE associated Press 123rF Help guide our coverage The Bulletin is launching an in-depth reporting series on the region’s shortage of affordable, accessible child care, and we want your help. share your stories about how access to child care has impacted you, and tell us more about what questions you want to see answered in future stories. answer a few quick questions online at bendbulletin.us/childcareimpacts. YouthBuild Continued from A1 The child and youth devel- opment track works largely the same way, according to Tanner Rohne, the program’s trainer. Af- ter an intensive, two-week orien- tation, students will spend eight weeks obtaining key certifications that allow them to spend the next eight months applying those skills in the classrooms of local child care providers. “We want to give them the whole gauntlet of what the pro- gression of youth go through from birth through 18. We know that child development never stops,” Rohne said. “So we want to give them the tools needed to have an open mindset and a growth mindset to welcome learning and to push it and thrive in it.” After the first year in the pro- gram, students move into the child care workforce full time and continue to receive goal-setting support and other YouthBuild re- sources for the second year. The child and youth devel- opment track takes place out of Heart of Oregon Corps’ Red- mond campus. Participants re- ceive a daily stipend starting at $26 a day, plus an AmeriCorps educational grant of around $1,600 at the completion of the program, Rohne said. Around 425 students have gone through YouthBuild’s construc- tion program in Central Oregon, and 70% were employed after the program, according to Rohne. Heart of Oregon had been con- sidering other possible tracks — such as health care professions — for expanding the YouthBuild program, but Rohne said the community need was clearest in the child care workforce. “We wanted to really bring in those early entry-level positions to really get kids in the door and really see how heart-filled work- ing with children really is,” Rohne said. “We feel that we have the ability to help pull on those heart- strings and really express and see the need to get qualified educa- tors for our youth and our chil- dren.” The child and youth develop- ment track will launch at the end of January, and the nonprofit is in now accepting applications for the program. More information about applying is available online at heartoforegon.org/programs. e e Reporter: 541-617-7814, zdemars@bendbulletin.com Bulletin reporter Bryce Dole contributed to this report. NEW YORK — Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health offi- cials said Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron’s share of infections in only one week. In much of the country, it’s even higher. Omicron is responsible for an es- timated 90% or more of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. The national rate suggests that more than 650,000 omicron infec- tions occurred in the U.S. last week. Since the end of June, the delta vari- ant had been the main version causing U.S. infections. As recently as the end of November, more than 99.5% of coro- naviruses were delta, according to CDC data. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the new numbers reflect the kind of growth seen in other countries. “These numbers are stark, but they’re not surprising,” she said. Scientists in Africa first sounded the alarm about omicron less than a month ago, and on Nov. 26 the World Health Organization designated it as a “vari- ant of concern.” The mutant has since shown up in about 90 countries. Much about the omicron variant re- mains unknown, including whether it causes more or less severe illness. Early studies suggest the vaccinated will need a booster shot for the best chance at preventing omicron infection but even without the extra dose, vaccination still should offer strong protection against severe illness and death. “All of us have a date with omicron,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If you’re going to interact with society, if you’re going to have any type of life, omicron will be something you encounter, and the best way you can en- counter this is to be fully vaccinated.” Adalja said he was not surprised by the CDC data showing omicron overtaking delta in the U.S., given what was seen in South Africa, the U.K. and Denmark. He predicted spread over the holidays, in- cluding breakthrough infections among the vaccinated and serious complications Jae c. hong/aP Travelers wait for a shuttle at the Los Angeles International Airport on Monday. Los Ange- les County’s daily new cases have tripled over the past week. Over the same period, the U.S. saw hundreds of thousands of new infections as travel ramps up for the holidays. Biden to address the nation Four days before christmas, President Joe Biden on Tuesday will again attempt to persuade americans to take protections to fend off the fast-spreading omicron variant. Biden on Tuesday will strike a more dire tone than his earlier pleas to get vac- cinated, having emphasized last week that unvaccinated americans are facing “a winter of severe illness and death.” But White house press secretary Jen Psaki said monday that the president’s speech is not “about locking the country down.” instead, he will announce a plan to set up testing sites across the country, partly modeled on the Federal emergency man- among the unvaccinated that could stress hospitals already burdened by delta. Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said other countries had seen omicron’s fast growth, but the U.S. data showed “a re- markable jump in such a short time.” Topol also said it’s unclear how much milder omicron really is compared with other variants. “That’s the big uncer- tainty now,” he said. “We have to count on it being a lot of hospitalizations and a lot severe disease from omicron.” CDC’s estimates are based on thou- sands of coronavirus specimens col- lected each week through university and commercial laboratories and state and local health departments. Scientists agement agency-run vaccination sites the administration deployed during its vac- cination campaign, according to people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them. The pres- ident will also detail steps to bolster the capacity of hospitals, many of which are ex- pected to be inundated in coming weeks. The White house also announced mon- day evening that a “mid-level staffer” had a breakthrough infection, three days after the staffer spent 30 minutes in proximity to Biden on Friday. The president tested nega- tive on monday and will be tested again on Wednesday, the White house said. — The Washington Post analyze their genetic sequences to deter- mine which versions of the COVID-19 viruses are most abundant. On Monday, the CDC revised its es- timate for omicron cases for the week that ended Dec. 11, after analyzing more samples. About 13% of the cases that week were from omicron, not the 3% previously reported. The week before, omicron accounted for just 0.4% of cases. CDC officials said they do not yet have estimates of how many hospitaliza- tions or deaths are due to omicron. Though there remain a lot of new in- fections caused by the delta variant, “I anticipate that over time that delta will be crowded out by omicron,” Walensky said.
