A woman is getting a Covid-19 test at a drive through Covid-19 testing center as hundreds of cars and pedestrians line up to get Covid-19 test before Christmas holiday season in North Bergen of New Jersey, United States on December 22, 2021.
The latest Covid surge is showing signs of slowing down in a few areas hit earliest by the omicron variant, offering a hope that this wave is starting to ease.
According to data compiled by the University, the US has reported an average of over one million cases per day over the past week, more than three times the level seen during last winter's previous record. In a number of states and cities, cases seem to have stopped or fallen in the last few days.
The average of daily new cases in New York has fallen since hitting a record high of 85,000 per day in January. There were more cases in the last seven days of December and the first week of January than in the previous seven days. Over the past week, the average daily cases in New York City have fallen by 31%.
Kathy Hochul said at a press conference that there will be a time when it is all over. It is on the horizon and we have waited a long time for that.
New York is still reporting a high level of daily infections, ranking 15th out of all states, according to a CNBC analysis of population-adjusted case counts, down from the second-most just a few days ago. New Jersey fell out of the top five as the state has seen a 32% drop in average daily cases over the past week.
Washington, D.C. had the highest number of Covid infections on a per capita basis, peaking at an average of 2,500 per day. The data shows that that has dropped to 1,700.
In Maryland, daily infections hit a high on January 8 but are down from a week ago.
In Illinois, Dr. Gates said you can already feel the stabilization of hospitalizations. According to the Department of Health and Human Services data, the seven-day average number of patients hospitalized with Covid has increased 4% over the past week, a more modest increase than the 30% weekly growth seen just two weeks ago.
She said that there was not a lot of influx in the beginning of the surge. If that lasts for five to seven consecutive days, I think you start to breathe a little bit easier, like we have gotten over this surge as well.
The United Kingdom and South Africa have both experienced surge in cases and are being watched as potential indicators of what could happen in the U.S. There is no guarantee that the U.S. will follow the same trajectory as South Africa and the U.K.
The trajectory of omicron could be affected by the American population's vaccination rates, levels of previous exposure to the virus, and degrees of underlying health conditions.
The majority of states have reported record-high infections as of Sunday, according to data from the Hopkins. The availability of at- home test kits for which results are not typically reported to state or federal agencies has led to the undercount of U.S. cases.
Western states have seen a rise in average daily cases over the past week, but some are showing signs of slowing. Dr. Michael Daignault said on CNBC that the admissions at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Los Angeles have rocketed because of that.
Daignault said that the surge and the plateau were caused by the delta crest.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued an emergency order on Tuesday to deal with the increase.
The omicron wave is expected to fall almost as quickly as it rose, leaving the US with relatively low cases of Covid in February or March.
It is possible that Americans could see a bit of a reprieve as a large swath of the population retains some immunity from recent infections.
Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said that they should be in a good position by the beginning of March. We are going to have very few cases reported in April, May and June.
When cases reach their peak, how much a community follows public health measures after that period is more important than how quickly cases fall.
It depends on how high the peak is. The associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health said that if people see the case count numbers coming down, they might loosen things up.
There is growing evidence that the omicron variant doesn't make people sick as much as the delta variant.
There are a record 156,000 Americans in U.S. hospitals with Covid, according to a seven-day average of HHS data. A significant portion of Covid hospitalizations seem to stem from people admitted for other reasons who test positive for the virus once they are in a facility.
About half of the hospitalizations in Miami are people who have been admitted for something else, according to the mayor. 42% of New York's hospitalized Covid patients were admitted for something other than the virus, according to NY Gov. Hochul on Sunday.
Hospitals can still be strained even if the omicron variant causes less severe disease because of the high volume of patients and staffing shortages.
The amount of patients that are coming to the ER or requiring admission is still the rate limiting factor, according to the L.A. doctor. Even if we peak at the end of January, you still have the back end of that surge for the rest of February.
Many of the patients in the intensive care unit are sick with the delta variant, according to Daignault. There is a rise in Covid deaths in L.A., he said. The CDC estimates omicron accounts for 95 percent of new cases.
There have been more cases and hospitalizations than last winter, but there are more Covid patients. The US is reporting an average of over 1,700 Covid deaths per day, which is up from the previous week but still less than the peak levels seen last year.
While vaccines without a booster shot seem to offer less protection against infections from omicron, they do seem to be holding up against severe disease and death for which they were originally designed to prevent. Unvaccinated people are the ones driving the rise in hospitalizations.
The high transmissibility means that many healthcare workers have become sick with the virus and have to be isolated, driving some hospitals to their limits sooner.
At the end of the surge, hospitalization and death counts lag behind increases in infections, even though a peak in cases provides a light at the end of the tunnel. The effects of the omicron spike are still being studied.
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There are signs of Covid hitting a peak in the Northeast.
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