Early Data Hints at Omicron’s Potential Toll Across America

After becoming dominant in the week prior to Christmas, the Omicron variant is rapidly spreading across the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have stated that it is too soon to determine the full impact Omicron will have on deaths and other illnesses across the country. However, data from some of Omicron’s worst-hit cities is starting to show what the future holds.

In New York City, Boston and Chicago — cities with some of the country’s earliest Omicron surges — deaths have followed cases at a slightly reduced scale than in previous peaks. However, the extremely high death toll from Omicron surges in the United States has made it difficult to predict a lower death rate.

Hospitals are seeing more patients who have tested positive for Covid-19 in early-hit areas than ever before. Many patients who come to the hospital with other illnesses or conditions are tested positive for the coronavirus due to the Omicron variant’s infectiousness. Doctors have stated that patients with Covid as a primary diagnosis are doing better than in previous waves.

However, the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care or mechanical ventilation is at an all-time high. Hospitals are under tremendous strain due to the sheer number of patients.

Before the Omicron wave, healthcare workers quit their jobs in record numbers. Many more people are getting sick from the highly transmissible variant. Even if there are fewer staff available to care for them than usual, even a small number of patients can overwhelm emergency rooms and intensive care units.

Those who have had vaccines have been far less likely than those who have not been vaccinated to be admitted with severe Covid-19. Early data from New York City shows that the vaccination gap in hospitalizations became even wider during the first weeks of the city’s Omicron surge.

Doctors say that patients who have been vaccinated are more likely to have milder diseases. However, Omicron patients who need intensive care are often unvaccinated or have compromised immune systems.

Covid-19 can cause severe illness in older people who have not been vaccinated. C.D.C. estimates that about 12 percent of Americans over 65 are not fully vaccinated. data. Many areas of the country where this rate is highest are also places where surges fueled in part by the Omicron variant haven’t yet begun or are just beginning. These places include parts of the Midwest, the Mountain West, and more rural areas throughout the country.