The Omicron variant tore through the US almost as quickly as it did. The US's Omicron outbreak could peak in January and last no more than three months, according to new models.
That would make this wave much more swift and steep.
When something goes up quickly, it can come back down, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Almost everyone is going to get an infectious disease because of the unvaccinated or being vaccined.
A report from the University of Texas states that Omicron cases could peak between January 18 and February 3 if the variant is able to evade immunity. At the height of the winter surge, COVID-19 cases could reach between 230,000 and 550,000 per day, according to the model.
The US is currently reporting around 170,000 daily COVID-19 cases, on average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report suggests that daily COVID-19 cases could bottom out in March. The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IH ME) has a model that predicts that the number of coronaviruses will peak at more than 2 million per day by January 27 and then decline to less than 1 million per day by April.
Scientists say that a highly transmissible virus tends to burn through a population until it runs out of people to spread it to.
"As the transmission moves from an outbreak setting to a household setting, where you're really starting to talk about infecting one or two people at a time, then you see that growth slow down," said David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"Any time you see a new outbreak popping up, it starts off with a bang," he said. It doesn't mean that they're going to stay that way forever.
The variant's original epicenter is South Africa, and it seems that Omicron has passed its peak there. Over the last week, daily carbon dioxide cases in South Africa have fallen by an average of 24%.
There could still be a huge surge of hospitalizations in the US.
"We're already seeing more and more cases of COVID in my own hospitals," Dr. Cherian told Insider.
There could be a rise in hospitalizations and infections.
People wait in line as city workers give out take- home COVID-19 tests.
Spencer Platt is a photographer.
The IHME model suggests that the US could see an all-time high in coronaviruses by January. Early data shows that Omicron doesn't cause more severe illnesses than Delta, perhaps because more people have immunity against the coronaviruses already.
The more Omicron spreads, the more hospitalizations and deaths are likely to rise.
A recent report from Imperial College London suggests that the variant increases the risk of reinfection by more than 5-fold compared with Delta.
More than half of Americans could be affected by Omicron within two to three months, according to the IHME model. According to the model, more than 85% of Omicron cases will be normal, but deaths could still increase in January.
The IHME predicts that COVID-19 deaths will peak around February 4. In the University of Texas' model, hospitalizations could reach between 10,000 and 30,000 per day, while deaths could reach between 1,500 and 3,900 per day.
The University of Texas researchers wrote that they expected Omicron to overtake Delta as the dominant variant and cause the most severe COVID-19 healthcare surge to date.
Staffing shortages at hospitals and a large number of unvaccinated people could make it difficult to treat patients. More than a third of Americans are unvaccinated or have only received one dose.
Faheem Younus, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, told Insider that hospital capacity is already strained in many states. We fear a repeat of early 2020 when surgeries were canceled and non-COVID care was impacted due to hospitals being overload with COVID.
