An omicron-driven spike in U.S. coronaviruses may have begun leveling off this week, but intensive care unitOccupancy has continued to rise as Covid-19 patients flood hospitals
A healthcare worker comforts a patient in the Covid-19 ward.
Agence France-Presse via
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there were over 68,000 hospital beds occupied on Friday, and Covid-19 patients were using up over 30% of the total nationwide capacity.
Alabama has the nation's most crowded ICUs, with 94.1% of beds occupied, just five months after a summer wave of Covid-19 cases caused Alabama to run out of ICU beds.
Texas, Mississippi, Vermont, Oklahoma, Georgia and Nevada have more than 90 percent of their intensive care units occupied by patients with Covid-19.
Rhode Island was the only state that was above 90% on January 11.
Alabama dedicates 34.9% of its ICU beds to Covid-19 patients, which is the highest share in the nation, followed by Missouri and Oklahoma.
159,052. The number of Covid-19 patients being treated in hospitals nationwide is listed by the HHS. Less than two weeks ago, the country surpassed its previous record for Covid-19 hospitalizations.
There is a key background.
The new omicron variant of coronaviruses began to cause infections last month. Omicron is less likely to cause severe Covid-19 in most patients than earlier forms of the virus, but the variant is highly transmissible and is able to sneak past immune defenses. Some hospitals have been stretched to their limits by this jump in hospital visits and staffing shortages caused by a surge of Covid-19 cases among healthcare workers. Maryland declared a state of emergency and many U.S. hospitals canceled surgeries.
It's called Tangent.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 73.8% of U.S. adults have received a vaccine against Covid-19. The vaccines are still highly effective at keeping people out of the hospital even though they are less effective against omicron. Boosters were effective at preventing hospitalizations after omicron became dominant, but down from when delta was still dominant.
What to watch for.
The country averaged 726,870 new coronaviruses cases per day in the last week, a decrease of almost 9% from the previous week. It could take several weeks before hospital admissions fall since figures for hospitalization and death lag behind case counts.
We don't know what we don't know.
The US Surgeon General told CNN on Sunday that he doesn't think Covid-19 cases will peak this week. He said that the next few weeks would be difficult.
You need to know how well the vaccine protects you against Omicron.
There is a crisis in some parts of the U.S.
Live updates on the coronaviruses.
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