Update: 2,000 more flights delayed, canceled Monday as omicron spreads

2,000 more flights delayed, canceled Monday as omicron spreads: Latest COVID-19 updates More than 700 flights were canceled or delayed Monday. Airlines say the omicron variant has caused staffing shortages. Latest updates. YahooNews

Airlines canceled more than 700 flights and delayed nearly 1,400 more early Monday as industry continued to be plagued by staffing shortages caused by the nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the omicron variant.

The seemingly endless waves of coronavirus surges apparently did little curb the American enthusiasm for holiday shopping, however – at least one metric shows sales since Nov. 1 had risen 8.5% from a year earlier, the biggest annual gain in 17 years.

And Americans wanted to travel, but airlines struggled to keep up. More than 1,500 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Sunday and over 6,000 delayed, the tracking website FlightAware reported. Several airlines said the scheduling issues were caused by staffing problems tied to COVID-19.  ...

 --- In some counties in the U.S., only half of the spike in deaths during the pandemic has been attributed to COVID-19. Researchers say that points to a massive undercount.

-- Even with testing disruptions from the Christmas holiday, America still reported dramatically worse COVID-19 numbers on Sunday.

In just the most recent 17 days the country has reported more new coronavirus cases than it had in all of November, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data show. In the week ending Sunday, the country reported 1.39 million cases – nearly 200,000 per day.

That number is up 47% from a week earlier, and up 65% from two weeks earlier. Christmas disruptions and limited access to testing mean the real number is likely worse.

New case records were set in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Puerto Rico.

-- Private employers operating in New York City must require COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers beginning today under a sweeping mandate aimed at curbing a spike in the virus. The order affects an estimated 184,000 businesses, and those that do not comply could face fines starting at $1,000. But Mayor Bill de Blasio has said imposing penalties would be a last resort. Unvaccinated workers need not be fired but must be kept out of the workplace. ...