As Omicron Replaces Delta, "Dark Days Ahead For Hospitals", Warn Experts
NDTV
The omicron variant represents about 98% of cases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday.
The highly infectious omicron variant has flushed out the delta strain across the U.S., but the ascendance of the purportedly milder form of Covid-19 has done nothing so far to ease the burden on stretched hospitals.
The omicron variant represents about 98% of cases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday. That number is based on data for the week ending Jan. 8 and is a significant increase from just two weeks prior, when omicron accounted for 71.3% of cases.
Omicron's heightened transmissibility coupled with the immunity some have built to combat the delta through vaccination and exposure, have made conditions favor the "more mild" variant, said David Wohl, a professor at the Institute of Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. But experts warn that for those who remain unvaccinated or who suffer from other health concerns, infection from any Covid-19 variant is a major concern. And without intervention, data signal dark days ahead for a health care system already stretched to its limit, they say.
In many parts of the U.S., the health care system is "collapsing under the weight of Covid patients," said Neil Sehgal, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. "I started to question whether or not this was the week the health care system would break."
