COVID Cases Spike as Questions Remain About Omicron’s Threat

Dec. 17, 2021 — Top infectious illness officers count on a surge of COVID-19 instances after the vacations and say Omicron will quickly take over because the dominant pressure within the United States.

The greatest strategy to keep protected is by getting vaccinated and boosted, they are saying.

“For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death — for yourselves, families, and the hospitals who may soon overwhelm,” White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients mentioned at a information briefing Friday. “We need the American people to do their part.”

The Omicron variant has been detected in no less than 39 states and 75 international locations, in response to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD.

The pressure is extra transmissible than the already extremely infectious Delta variant, and though there was early proof that it prompted extra delicate illness, she mentioned that’s seemingly as a result of a lot of these contaminated have been vaccinated and boosted.

“Although Delta continues to circulate widely in the United States, Omicron is increasing rapidly and we expect it to become the dominant strain in the United States, as it has in other countries, in the coming weeks,” Walensky mentioned.

The U.S. is averaging near 1,300 deaths from COVID-19 every day. New instances, deaths, and hospitalizations are larger now than within the earlier winter — earlier than vaccines had been so extensively accessible. The New York Times reported Friday that new infections in Connecticut and Maine have grown 150% prior to now 2 weeks, and Ohio and Indiana are seeing hospitalization charges nearing the worst of final winter’s surge.

Dueling stories launched this week gave trigger for aid and concern about Omicron.

A examine from South Africa launched Tuesday reveals decrease hospitalizations in the course of the first 3 weeks of the Omicron wave than throughout earlier waves from different variants. That’s the excellent news.

The regarding information is out of the United Kingdom, the place Imperial College London reported Friday that the chance of re-infection with COVID-19 from Omicron is greater than 5 occasions as excessive and that instances of Omicron-based COVID-19 are doubling each 2 days.

What’s extra, the examine “finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection. However, hospitalization data remains very limited at this time,” researchers mentioned.

“We don’t have any proof that the virus itself is extra delicate,” Eric Topol, MD, govt vice chairman of Scripps Research and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD’s sister web site for well being care professionals, informed PBS NewsHour. “Until we have now that, we have now to imagine that individuals who haven’t any safety are extremely susceptible to getting very unwell.”

The White House COVID-19 workforce continues to induce mother and father and guardians to get their youngsters vaccinated, particularly in anticipation of a post-holiday spike. Walensky mentioned the CDC’s vaccine advisory board met Thursday to proceed the security dialogue about COVID-19 vaccinations in youngsters.

So far, 20 million youngsters underneath 17 and 5 million underneath 11 have obtained their pictures.

“Looking specifically at vaccine safety data from over 50,000 children 5-11 years old, we found no evidence of serious safety concerns,” Walensky mentioned.

Top infectious illness skilled Anthony Fauci, MD, highlighted the significance of getting vaccinated and boosted to keep away from critical illness from Delta and Omicron.

“We’re in a situation where we are now facing a very important Delta surge and we are looking over our shoulder at an oncoming Omicron surge,” he mentioned. “The optimum protection is fully vaccinated plus a boost.”