Health care worker deaths surged during delta. How to keep them safer during omicron: Analysis

The omicron variant has now been detected in all 50 states. While more will be known about omicron in the near future, the toll the new variant is taking on an already taxed health care system is of concern now.

Take a look back at what the delta surge did to the health care workforce (defined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as paid or unpaid workers who are exposed to patients or infectious materials) – many of them suffered burnout, had grueling workloads due to staffing shortages and non-COVID care was impacted.

The challenges are beginning to mount with staffing shortages because of omicron infections, and in some parts of the country hospitals are being strained.

Statistics from the CDC contain a pretty striking fact: seven of the 10 deadliest weeks for health workers during the pandemic occurred after July 2021. This was an inflection point in which we had rising cases of delta, more than 30% unvaccinated Americans, kids returning to school along with employers reopening offices in some parts of the country.