• Globally, there have been more than 421 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 5.8 million associated deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
• The United States has reported more than 78.3 million confirmed cases and more than 932,000 associated deaths.
• Currently, more than 252.5 million people in the United States have received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with more than 214.4 million people fully vaccinated. More than 92.3 million people have received a booster dose.

Healthline updates this page on weekdays. For up-to-date information about the virus, go here.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Feb. 17 the state’s SMARTER Plan, the next phase of California’s pandemic response.

“The SMARTER Plan will guide California’s strategic approach to managing COVID-19 while moving the state’s recovery forward,” Newsom said in a statement.

The plan aims to help people manage the coronavirus as COVID-19 becomes a more endemic disease.

Stealth Omicron variant potentially vaccine resistant

New, not yet peer-reviewed research finds a sub-variant of Omicron called BA.2 or “stealth Omicron,” which not only spreads faster but may also be more dangerous and able to bypass currently available COVID-19 vaccines.

“Neutralization experiments show that the vaccine-induced humoral immunity fails to function against BA.2,” the study authors wrote.

Researchers also found that BA.2 has a transmission advantage over Omicron, so it could spread faster through populations.

However, the United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency (HSA) advises that vaccines are equally effective at preventing the symptomatic disease from BA.2 as with the original Omicron variant.

Adidas to drop vaccine requirement for workers

According to CBS, with some of the largest U.S. companies dropping mask mandates for vaccinated workers, other companies are announcing plans to discard COVID-19 vaccine requirements altogether.

Adidas advised U.S. workers on Feb. 14 that they are no longer required to be vaccinated against the virus, reported CBS.

“Though no longer required, we strongly encourage all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and will continue to require all employees in the U.S. to submit their vaccination status by March 1,” an Adidas spokesperson told CBS in an email.

Omicron led to increase of hospitalization of children under the age of 4

A reportTrusted Source from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the spread of Omicron led to more children being hospitalized than during previous COVID-19 waves. Compared to the Delta wave, the rate of children and adolescents being hospitalized was four times higher in the Omicron wave.

For the first time, medical experts saw a significant rise in children under the age of 4 being hospitalized for COVID-19 symptoms.

The researchers also found that children ages 12 to 17 were more protected since they were the only group to have access to vaccines before the Omicron wave started. Unvaccinated children in that age group were six times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 compared to their fully vaccinated counterparts.