January 12, 2022 - Hopeful Signs from New York, New Jersey & D.C.

Hopeful Signs from New York, New Jersey & D.C.

January 12, 2022

The Omicron variant is ripping through the United States at such blinding speed that it’s easy to tune out critical data points. Here is one: more than 57,000 nursing home staff in the United States were infected with Covid during the week ending Jan. 9, nearly double the previous peak from December 2020, according to CDC. Nursing home staff! Mind-blowing.

Alabama has averaged 11,204 cases per day this week, which equates to 211 cases per 100K population. That number is nearly triple the peak in cases we saw during Delta this past summer. Alabama also reached the 1 million case milestone today, logging 1,004,622 cases since the start of the pandemic. After skyrocketing during the first week of January, the number of daily cases leveled off this week. It’s possible there is an artificial ceiling on daily cases in Alabama due to a limit in third party testing capacity in the state.

Some say daily case counts should take a backseat to hospitalizations as the key metric in evaluating Omicron’s impact. According to the U.S. Health and Human Services Dep’t, there are 2,136 Covid patients in Alabama hospitals, which is roughly two-thirds of the peaks reached in January and August. However, with their current staffing shortages, hospitals are extremely stretched. UAB reports 193 Covid-19 patients, 48 of them in the ICU. Huntsville Hospital has 142 patients, 17 in the ICU. DCH has 91 patients, 14 of them in the ICU.

Hospitalizations are setting pandemic records and Alabama will naturally follow suit. The sheer volume of cases sends record numbers to the hospital but that doesn’t necessarily translate to more ICU cases and deaths. A recent study conducted by Kaiser Permanente Southern California found that, compared to Delta, Omicron is responsible for a 53% reduction in adjusted risk of symptomatic hospitalization, a 74% reduction in adjusted risk of ICU admission and a 91% reduction in adjusted risk of death.

Could the Omicron surge have already peaked in some places? Judging from the latest case counts in the District of Columbia (down 19% in the last 7 days); New Jersey (down 6% in the last 7 days); and New York (up 3% in the last 7 days), I believe so. Those 3 areas of the country were hit earliest and hardest, so their decline in cases is a very good sign. Even their hospitalization rates have begun to moderate - New Jersey (up 1% in last 7 days); New York (up 10% in last 7 days); and D.C. (up 16% in last 7 days).

With New York, New Jersey and D.C. doing better, I am ever hopeful we won’t be far behind. The question is whether Alabama, with its dreadful booster rate (still under 15% of the population), will take longer to do the same. Only time will tell. The totals:

12/29 - 5,975

12/30 - 8,526

12/31 - 8,051

1/1 - 7,577

1/2 - 5,400

1/3 - 4,014

1/4 - 7,572

1/5 - 12,075

1/6 - 12,626

1/7 - 12,972

1/8 - 8,332

1/9 - 12,452

1/10 - 6,250

1/11 - 8,530

1/12 - 11,204