Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States are set to hit a new high as early as Friday, according to a Reuters tally, fueling a rise in the highly contagious Omicron variant infections surpassing the record set in January of last year. Is.
Hospitalizations have risen steadily since late December as Omicron quickly overtook Delta as the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States, although experts say Omicron will likely prove less deadly than prior iterations .
Health officials have nonetheless warned that the sheer number of infections caused by Omicron was straining hospitals, some of which are struggling to keep up with an influx of patients because their own staff are ill.
“It’s like medical throughput gridlock,” Dr. Peter Dillon, chief clinical officer for Penn State Health in Pennsylvania, said in an interview. “There (there) a lot of forces are contributing to the challenges now and I think there is an element, I want to say fatigue, not despair.”
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The United States on Thursday reported 662,000 new Covid-19 cases, the fourth-highest daily US total, just three days after a record nearly 1 million cases, according to a Reuters tally.
According to the tally, US Covid hospitalizations approached 123,000, topping the record above 132,000. Deaths, a trailing indicator, are fairly stable at around 1,400 a day, well below last year’s peak.
Hospitalization figures, however, often do not differentiate between people admitted for COVID-19 and so-called casual cases, those admitted for other reasons and found to be infected during routine testing.
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42% of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 in New York were in the casual category, Governor Cathy Hochul told a briefing on Friday, indicating how the data may not give a clear picture of Omicron’s impact in the context of serious illness. .
While hospitalizations in New York continued, Hochul and other state officials expressed optimism that the worst of the Omicron wave could pass in the coming days.
“We need a few more days to be able to tell that it’s peaking,” said New York’s Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett. “I think we can expect a tough January but by February things should be much better.”
staff exhaustion
Rising cases have forced hospital systems in nearly half of US states to postpone elective surgeries, a reflection of stress on the health sector, which lost nearly 3,100 workers, according to Friday’s US monthly employment report.
Some doctors and nurses expressed dismay at the rise among unvaccinated patients, saying they do not understand why someone would ignore a doctor’s advice to get vaccinated, but then get a medical treatment when sick with Covid-19. Get help from a professional.
“A lot of it is unnecessary death,” said Lynn Kokozka, a clinical nurse specialist in an intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, shortly after helping to remove a dead Covid-19 patient from the ward.
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Ninety-nine percent of patients in intensive care on mechanical ventilation at the Cleveland Clinic have not been vaccinated, said Dr. Hassan Khouli, chair of the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the Center for Academic Medicine.
“It’s really taking a toll on our teams,” Khauli said. “Burnout is a major concern.”
While many school systems have vowed to continue in-person instruction, some have faced closure as cases rise. In Chicago – the third largest US public school system – schools were closed for a third day on Friday amid a teacher’s walkout over COVID-19 safety.
Officials continue to regard vaccination as the best protection against serious disease, although federal mandates that require it have become politically controversial.
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In a closely watched legal examination of the mandate, conservative US Supreme Court justices on Friday questioned President Joe Biden’s vaccine-or-test need for big businesses but for healthcare facilities at a time of rising Covid-19 infections. Appeared more receptive to a mandate.
US employees of Citigroup Inc. (CN) who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 14 will be placed on unpaid leave and fired at the end of the month, unless they are given a vaccine waiver, a The source told Reuters on Friday.
Hochul said New York would become the first state to mandate a booster shot for healthcare workers, pending approval from the State Health Planning Council. He said that boosters are needed to keep nurses healthy and able to work.
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