Andrew Pawson, 30, a positive patient in recovery after spending over a month in isolation wards, holds the hand of his wife, Isobel, inside his room at Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, Idaho, U.S., October 28, 2021.
Even as the US grapples with the first patient with the omicron variant, Covid-19 hospitalizations are on the rise again.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that it is too early for omicron to affect case numbers or hospitalizations in the U.S. The country is far from the peak of the delta wave, but it is beginning to get back to normal with colder weather in the North and people gathering to celebrate major U.S. holidays.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services data, the number of Americans hospitalized with Covid-19 is up 8% over the previous week and 20% from the country's most recent low point.
The country has seen a surge in infections. The average daily cases peaked at 172,000 per day in mid-September before falling sharply and then peaking at a high level of between 70,000 and 75,000 new cases a day for nearly three weeks through early November, according to data compiled by the University. The cases went up again, reaching an average of nearly 96,000 per day before the holiday.
Most states did not report case or death numbers on Thanksgiving, according to a list maintained by the Hopkins. It could take days or weeks for local agencies to clear testing backlogs and report new cases that occurred in the days surrounding the holiday because many states have scaled back their daily Covid data reports to just weekdays or once per week.
This is the reason reported Covid cases and deaths tend to go down in the days following a holiday. As of Wednesday, the US average has dropped to about 86,000 daily cases, which will likely increase over the next week.
Hospitalizations, which measure the number of patients in hospital beds with Covid, have historically been more stable during holiday periods and less disrupted by reporting interruptions.
A combination of cold weather, dry air, holiday travel and parties are some of the reasons why the outbreak is getting worse. Some Americans who got sick from Covid early on in the Pandemic may have waning immunity, he said.
U.S. vaccination rates have increased, but at a slower pace. According to CDC data, nearly 60% of Americans are fully vaccine free. It has been almost four months since that figure reached 50%. It took less than a month for the nation to go from 30% to 40%.
The senior director of infection prevention for The Johns Hopkins said that the vaccine numbers are not where they need to be, and that many people who are not vaccine-free do not intend to get it.
Maragakis said that it will be harder for the US to get Covid to a place where it is not an epidemic because it will be more manageable.
If we have large pockets of unvaccinated people, that is not going to be the case.
The omicron variant was reported by South Africa about a week ago, but these trends were already in place. The U.S. needs to do more to mitigate Covid risk as the global scientific community investigates the strain's transmissibility and whether it may cause severe disease or evade some protection from vaccines.
He said that it was a reminder that we need to keep those precautions because we thought a winter surge was coming anyway. Getting vaccinations, wearing face masks, and maintaining good air quality are some of the key tools in fighting the spread of the virus.
The current outbreak has a lot of variation, with the most intense of the waves hitting the Midwest. Midwestern states have seen hospitalizations increase over the past two weeks.
Maragakis said that some regions of the U.S. are not feeling it, but that they are in a crisis situation.
CNBC analysis of HHS data shows that Michigan has the highest rate of Covid hospitalizations in the country. The wave has been more challenging than before because of the volume of patients, staffing challenges and duration of the epidemic.
The 464 Covid patients in Spectrum Health hospitals as of Wednesday is the system's highest mark yet, with hospitals so full that there is limited ability to transfer patients who need more care to other beds across the system.
The vast majority of those hospitalized with Covid are unvaccinated. There are more instances of breakthrough infections, but they are not resulting in a need for critical care.
Despite this year's higher level of hospitalizations, Spectrum Health recorded a high number of Covid deaths in November, but lower than last December's record of 192.
The federal government sent two medical teams from the Department of Defense to Michigan in response to a request from the governor.
It will take some time before the impact of Thanksgiving gatherings on the national Covid numbers is seen. It will take between two and four weeks for infections to be detected and reported based on the time it takes for people to get symptoms, receive a positive test, and have their cases published by state and local systems, according to Lee.
In January of 2021, there will be an average of more than 250,000 infections and 3,400 deaths per day.
