Health
Omicron variant less severe than other pandemic waves, CDC says: COVID updates
The highly contagious variant has pushed the U.S. to break 1 million cases in a day multiple times and the pace of reported deaths is currently above 15,000 per week.
But despite omicron seeing the highest reported numbers of hospitalizations during the pandemic, the ratio of emergency department visits and hospitalizations to case numbers were actually lower compared to the COVID waves from the delta variant and during winter 2020–21, the study says.
Intensive care unit admission, length of stay, and in-hospital deaths were all lower during omicron, the CDC report says, likely in part due to vaccinations and booster shots. 207 million Americans have been vaccinated during omicron’s period, compared to 178 million during delta and only 1.5 million during the winter 2020-21 period.
Although omicron is seemingly less severe, its contagiousness is still stretching the medical system to its limits: the number of people with COVID visiting emergency departments was 86% higher than during delta, according to the CDC.
The federal government recently sent military medical teams to six states to help hospitals overburdened by the coronavirus, and governors have ordered the Ohio and Kansas National Guard to hospitals to help alleviate staffing issues.
The CDC report tracked data up until Jan. 15, when the rise in hospital admissions seemed to be slowing.
Omicron’s new variant cousin has arrived in the US
Don’t panic yet, experts say.
Unlike two years ago when everyone was first learning about COVID-19, there are now many tools to combat the disease, and, like its cousin, omicron BA.2 is expected to remain relatively mild.
“I don’t think it’s going to cause the degree of chaos and disruption, morbidity and mortality that BA.1 did,” said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to continue to move to a better place and, hopefully, one where each new variant on the horizon isn’t news.”
While COVID-19 cases have begun to decline in places like Massachusetts, where omicron hit hard late last year, cases of BA.2 are on the rise in the Philippines, India, Denmark and South Africa, Lemieux said. Cases have been reported in the United States, too – so far in California, New Mexico, Texas and Washington state.
It’s not clear yet whether BA.2 is pushing out the original omicron variant, now referred to as BA.1, he said.
— Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY
