January 3, 2022
In the past week in Alabama, daily Covid-19 cases rose 250% and hospitalizations rose 80%. Just in the last four days, 25,042 new cases have been confirmed in the state, compared to 5,237 cases during the same four days last week. The statewide positivity rate is now 36.4%. Meanwhile, last Monday, there were 694 Covid patients in Alabama hospitals; today, one week later, there are 1,250 such patients. (Source: Department of Health and Human Services TeleTracking and HHS Protect hospital reporting systems).
Unlike previous waves that rippled from one region of the country to another, the Omicron surge has seemingly swept across the United States all at once. In the past 7 days, every state has been affected, ranging from 579% more cases in North Carolina to 4% more in New Hampshire. Most epidemiologists believe the actual case count is many times higher than the reported number due to an inadequacy in the nation’s testing infrastructure and the growing prevalence of at-home tests.
Before the beginning of last week, the highest number of cases ever reported in a single day in the United States was around 315,000 last January 11. The nation more than tripled that number today - 1,018,170 cases in a single day **(Source: Washington Post and Johns Hopkins University - footnote below). Though it is well-documented that the Omicron variant is not as deadly as the Delta variant, hospitalizations are rapidly rising nonetheless. Today, U.S. Covid-related hospitalizations topped 103,000, matching the highest level during the Delta peak, but still below the January 2021 peak of 142,000.
There is growing evidence that unvaccinated children may be particularly at risk. The Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston reported three new records this weekend related to sick children. First, the hospital is now treating 70 children infected by Covid-19 — the highest number since the pandemic began almost two years ago. The number of pediatric hospitalizations nearly quintupled in three weeks’ time. Second, the hospital reported 700 positive pediatric test results in a single day, another record. Finally, among the tests administered this weekend, the positivity rate at the hospital was more than 30%, another record driven by the Omicron variant.
If there is a silver lining in the latest surge, aside from reduced severity, it might be the growing expectation that Omicron will burn itself out more quickly than previous variants. There is some evidence to support that view in southern Africa, where Omicron originated. The nation of South Africa, for example, reached a peak on December 17, averaging 23,500 cases per day. That daily average has plummeted 58% to 8,414 per day over the last 14 days. Both hospitalizations and deaths have proven to be lower in South Africa than expected.
Hopefully, something like that will happen in the United States. Both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently predicted that the Omicron surge should peak by late January. New estimates from researchers at Columbia University suggest that New York City will peak this week and that the U.S. could peak by as early as Jan. 9 - at between 2.5 million and 5.4 million cases per week. Nearly two years into this pandemic, I have grown somewhat skeptical of forecasts based on computer models. If the coronavirus has proven anything, it is reliably unpredictable.
So, until the day when the Omicron variant is brought to heel, here is my advice. You can either get vaccinated and boosted, relying on lab studies and real-world experience which establish that vaccines are 70% effective in preventing infection and, if nothing else, they remain a significant shield against severe outcomes. Or you can throw caution to the wind and risk getting infected … in hopes you will be fortunate enough to contract a mild case. If you do the latter, you will be making a double gamble: first, that the virus won’t ravage your body, and second, that when the virus is eventually purged, it will leave you immune to getting the virus again. Is that double gamble worth taking? The totals:
12/20 - 552
12/21 - 1,254
12/22 - 1,460
12/23 - 2,060
12/24 - 2,466
12/25 - 2,449
12/26 - 863
12/27 - 1,679
12/28 - 3,705
12/29 - 5,975
12/30 - 8,526
12/31 - 8,051
1/1 - 7,577
1/2 - 5,400
1/3 - 4,014
** It must be noted that the 1,018,170 new U.S. cases attributed to January 3 includes an indeterminate number of cases that were the result of testing performed over the New Years Day weekend. The daily average for the 3-day period from January 1-3 is 486,000 new cases per day. The 7-day moving average for the weekly period ending January 3 is 410,039 cases per day.