oil futures edged higher monday beginning 2022 on a positive note as traders looked past rising covid19 cases building on the strongest annual rise for crude in 12 years west texas intermediate crude for february delivery cl00 clg22 rose 29 cents or 04 to 7550 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange march brent crude brn00 brnh22  the global benchmark was up 43 cents or 06 at 7821 a barrel on ice futures europe wti the us benchmark rose 55 in 2021 the strongest percentage gain based on frontmonth contracts since 2009 brent advanced 502 its strongest percentage rise since 2016 “the omicron variant is spreading like wildfire but hospitalizations remain under control and most governments seem wary of going back to lockdowns feeding optimism that this wave won’t inflict much damage on the global economy” said marios hadjikyriacos senior analyst at xm in a note “this cautious sense of relief is being reflected across financial markets today crude oil prices are on the rise european equities are a sea of green while the defensive japanese yen is on the ropes that said all these moves are relatively minor as traders await the next big theme” hadjikyriacos said over the past week the average number of new us cases has topped 400000 for the first time up more than 200 over the last 14 days according to a new york times tracker deaths have fallen by 3 over the same period dr anthony fauci the government’s top infectious disease doctor said sunday that the focus should be on the number of hospitalizations which could overwhelm health systems rather than new infections many infections are mild or asymptomatic and scientists believe the omicron variant while more infectious may be less virulent than other variants but other variants are also circulating moreover the risk of severe disease from any circulating variant including omicron is much much higher for the unvaccinated fauci warned last week