COVID-19: Tips to find at-home testsStarting January 19, Americans will be able to have at-home COVID-19 tests shipped to their homes, for free.Staff Video, USA TODAYCalifornia, a state where an omicron-driven spike in COVID-19 cases occurred later than in cities like Chicago, New York City and Washington D.C., may reach peak case numbers and see case rates begin to fall this week, according to a forecast from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.The model predicted a peak in cases from the state for Jan. 19, with an estimation of almost 130,000 cases a day. Los Angeles County has the highest number of confirmed cases by county in the United States at 2.3 million confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. As of Jan. 18, the state had 15,179 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, according to state data. A study, posted online and cited during a recent White House briefing, found patients with omicron had a 53% lower risk of hospitalization with respiratory symptoms, a 74% lower risk of ICU admission, and a 91% lower risk of death. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, comes from researchers at Kaiser Permanente and University of California, Berkeley.“It’s hard for me to say straight out it’s good news,” said study co-author Sara Y. Tartof, a Kaiser Permanente research scientist. “Maybe there’s good news in the sense that if you are infected your chance of becoming severely ill are decreased, but from a societal perspective it’s a very heavy burden for us. It remains a serious situation, and we need to maintain practices and behaviors we know protect us.”Earlier this week, USA TODAY talked to Marlene Wolfe, an assistant professor of environmental health at Emory University in Atlanta and part of the Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network, a team of scientists that evaluates sewage treatment plants to gain information about COVID-19 rates in California communities. Wolfe told USA TODAY at the time that testing in about a dozen California cities, the largest of which are Sacramento and San Jose, shows a few cities with possible downward trends but nothing concrete.Other cities are on the rise, and it will take more time or data to determine where peaks have occurred.Also in the news: ►President Joe Biden highlighted the progress his administration has made in the fight against COVID-19 and assured Americans the pandemic would come under control at a White House news conference Wednesday.►As the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games approach and COVID-19 concerns mount, NBC Sports will not send any of its announcing teams to China, a spokesperson told USA TODAY Sports Wednesday afternoon. ►U.S. immigration courts have hit a historic backlog jam not seen in decades, sparking years-long delays for immigrants seeking asylum, as the pandemic shuttered courtrooms and contributed to the logjam, according to a new report.📈Today’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded more than 68 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 857,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Global totals: More than 337 million cases and over 5.56 million deaths. More than 209 million Americans – 63% – are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.📘What we’re reading: Now that the U.S. government has launched its free coronavirus test delivery website, how useful will these COVID-19 tests be for travelers who need a negative test to fly to their destination? Read more.Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more? Sign up for USA TODAY’s free Coronavirus Watch newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and join our Facebook group.The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office filed a consumer-protection lawsuit Wednesday against a nationwide chain of coronavirus testing sites for “deceptive and fraudulent practices.”The suit alleges the Illinois-based Center for COVID Control and its primary lab, Doctors Clinical Lab, collected samples from Minnesotans for coronavirus testing but either failed to deliver test results or delivered test results that were false or inaccurate, according to the complaint reviewed by USA TODAY.The company and its lab “provide inaccurate and deceptive test result information to Minnesota consumers and have fraudulently reported negative test results to consumers that never completed COVID-19 tests,” according to the complaint. Some test results listed “the wrong test type and false dates and times for when samples were collected from consumers,” the complaint said.The Center for COVID Control “is owned and/or managed” by Illinois residents Akbar Syed and Aleya Siyaj, the complaint says. In recent months, the couple has purchased a number of luxury vehicles and a $1.36 million mansion.— Grace Hauck, USA TODAYContributing: The Associated Press