US Averaging 700K Daily Covid Cases; Short-Staffed Hospitals Can Be Easily Overwhelmed
The latest omicron-driven wave continues to break records for daily infections and the number of children hospitalized. While for many — especially the fully vaccinated — symptoms are less severe, the sheer numbers are still hitting medical facilities hard. Especially when their workers are also out sick.
The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Covid-19 Seven-Day Case Average Tops 700,000
The seven-day average for newly reported cases in the U.S. topped 700,000 for the first time, data from Johns Hopkins University show, as the highly infectious Omicron variant spreads throughout the country. The average of known cases could soon triple the pre-Omicron record set a year ago, when the U.S. briefly saw about a quarter million daily cases. The numbers reported by state health departments and collected by Johns Hopkins also likely reflect a fraction of the true number, due in part to Omicron’s rapid spread and the difficulty many Americans have had getting tested. Some laboratories are limiting test-processing to certain people such as those with symptoms because of the surge in demand. (Kamp, 1/9)
The New York Times:
Early Data Hints At Omicron’s Potential Toll Across America
The extremely transmissible Omicron variant is spreading quickly across the United States, making up a vast majority of U.S. cases after becoming dominant in the week before Christmas. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that it is still too soon to predict the full impact Omicron could have on deaths and illness across the country. But data in some of the earliest-hit cities is beginning to show what the future could hold. (Leatherby and Lutz, 1/9)
USA Today:
COVID Hospitalizations Of Kids Under 4 Increasing: Omicron Updates
Hospitalization rates among the youngest children are reaching their highest levels yet as the omicron variant spreads and babies and toddlers remain ineligible to be vaccinated, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday. Although hospitalization rates among the youngest children remain lower compared to many older Americans, data from the CDC indicate 4.3 per 100,000 children 4 years old and younger were hospitalized in the week ending Jan. 1. Children ages 5 to 17 had a hospitalization rate of 1.1, while adults ages 18 to 49 had a rate of 4.2. The rate among people 65 and older was 14.7 per 100,000, according to the CDC data. (Tebor, Thornton, Weintraub and Miller, 1/7)
Across the U.S., hospitals are in trouble —
The Atlantic:
Omicron Isn't Mild For Hospitals
When a health-care system crumbles, this is what it looks like. Much of what’s wrong happens invisibly. At first, there’s just a lot of waiting. Emergency rooms get so full that “you’ll wait hours and hours, and you may not be able to get surgery when you need it,” Megan Ranney, an emergency physician in Rhode Island, told me. When patients are seen, they might not get the tests they need, because technicians or necessary chemicals are in short supply. Then delay becomes absence. The little acts of compassion that make hospital stays tolerable disappear. Next go the acts of necessity that make stays survivable. Nurses might be so swamped that they can’t check whether a patient has their pain medications or if a ventilator is working correctly. People who would’ve been fine will get sicker. Eventually, people who would have lived will die. This is not conjecture; it is happening now, across the United States. “It’s not a dramatic Armageddon; it happens inch by inch,” Anand Swaminathan, an emergency physician in New Jersey, told me. (Wong, 1/7)
CNN:
Nearly A Quarter Of Hospitals Are Reporting A Critical Staff Shortage As Omicron Drives A Rise In Covid-19 Cases
About 24% of US hospitals are reporting a "critical staffing shortage," according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, as public health experts warn the Covid-19 surge fueled by the Omicron variant threatens the nation's health care system. "Given how much infection there is, our hospitals really are at the brink right now," Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, told CNN on Sunday. (Andone and Cullinane, 1/9)
AP:
Kansas Hospital Runs Out Of Ventilators As Virus Cases Soar
A hospital in eastern Kansas ran out of ventilators Friday as the state continued to report a surge in COVID-19 cases. The Lyons County Board declared a local emergency Friday after the Newman Regional Health hospital in Emporia ran short of ventilators. The Kansas City Star reports that the emergency declaration will help the hospital receive two additional ventilators from the state’s Emergency Operations Center. (1/9)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
St. Louis Hospitals Notch A Seventh Day Of Record-Breaking COVID Admissions
A weeklong stretch of record-setting coronavirus numbers continued uninterrupted Sunday, with area hospitals reporting across-the-board spikes in admissions, intensive care patients and ventilator use. The region's four main health care systems were treating 1,283 COVID-positive patients Sunday, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reported. That figure surpassed Saturday's all-time peak of 1,219. An average of 1,139 patients were in the hospital for COVID each day of the past week — another record — up from 1,085 on Saturday. (Schrappen, 1/9)
Los Angeles Times:
L.A. County Sets New Daily Record With 45,000 Coronavirus Cases
Los Angeles County reached another daily record of coronavirus cases as health officials on Sunday reported more than 45,000 new infections. The county recorded 45,584 new cases amid the surge in infections driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus, according to figures released by the county’s Department of Public Health. The department also reported 13 new deaths, bringing the county’s total number of deaths to 27,785 since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Vega, 1/9)
Texas Tribune:
Omicron Is On Track To Shatter Texas' COVID-19 Hospitalization Records
Pandemic forecasters in Texas say the state’s current surge of omicron infections and hospitalizations is likely to get much worse before it gets better, with hospitalizations expected to continue climbing for at least three weeks if social behaviors don’t change and slow the trend. Across the nation, hospitalizations are already on the verge of breaking new pandemic records. In Texas on Thursday, according to state data, about 9,200 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 — far short of the record 14,218 hospitalizations from Jan. 11, 2021. (Brooks Harper and Astudillo, 1/9)
Philadelphia Inquirer:
COVID Hospitalizations In Pa.: 90% Of Patients Unvaccinated, Hospitals Say
Pennsylvania hospitals say the vast majority of hospitalized coronavirus patients are still unvaccinated — as high as 90% at some hospitals — even as more vaccinated people are also getting infected amid the omicron-delta surge. Over the last year, the rate of hospitalization and death among unvaccinated people in the United States has been much higher than for those fully vaccinated. But now as more immunized people get breakthrough cases of the omicron variant of the virus, the protection provided by the vaccine has been proven again and again, doctors say. While the shots do not always prevent mild or asymptomatic infections, the risk of not being vaccinated is on grim display, they say, pointing to their overflowing wards and strained intensive care units. (McDaniel and McCarthy, 1/7)
The Boston Globe:
As Mass. COVID Hospitalization Numbers Surge Over Last Winter’s, Health Care Leaders Urge Public To Get Vaccinated, Boosted
With Massachusetts hospitalization rates now climbing higher than last winter, four leaders of hospitals and health systems say their workers have done their part — and now it’s time for the public to do its part by getting vaccinated, boosted, and wearing masks. “We are here for you and your families, whether you have been vaccinated or not. We will do our part; we ask that you do yours,” they said in a Globe op-ed. The state reported Thursday that 2,524 patients with COVID-19 were in the hospital. That exceeds the peak during last winter’s deadly surge of 2,428 on Jan. 4, 2021. (Fatima, 1/7)
Is there good news on the horizon? —
Fox News:
Omicron Wave Receding At Global Epicenter, CDC Cautiously Optimistic
The omicron wave that has whiplashed the world with surging cases has peaked after approximately four weeks in a large South African hospital in the City of Tshwane where the global outbreak first started, according to a recent paper. The research, which is not yet peer-reviewed, compared 466 hospital COVID-19 admissions at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital since Nov. 14, 2021 (when the omicron outbreak began) to 3976 prior admissions at the same hospital before the outbreak began. (Sudhakar, 1/9)
