Some herd resistance but little immunity. Eric
From today's Times:
U.S. hospitals strain under Omicron, but their I.C.U.s. seem to be faring
better.<https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/05/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests?campaign_id=4&emc=edit_dk_20220106&instance_id=49572&nl=dealbook®i_id=154361674&segment_id=78844&te=1&user_id=9f822f7dd6cd888950b7565b75cff64c#us-hospitals-strain-under-omicron-but-their-icus-seem-to-be-faring-better>
[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/01/04/science/04virus-briefing-hospitals/04virus-briefing-hospitals-articleLarge-v2.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale]
Image
[Nurses in the Emergency Department at Covenant Healthcare in Saginaw, Mich.,
last month. Covid cases are stressing hospitals already struggling with short
staffing, but many I.C.U.s are less full than in prior waves.]
Nurses in the Emergency Department at Covenant Healthcare in Saginaw, Mich.,
last month. Covid cases are stressing hospitals already struggling with short
staffing, but many I.C.U.s are less full than in prior waves.Credit...Isadora
Kosofsky for The New York Times
In hospitals around the country, doctors are taking notice: This wave of Covid
seems different from the last
one.<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/health/covid-omicron-hospitalizations.html>
Once again, as they face the highly contagious Omicron variant, medical
personnel are exhausted and are contracting the virus themselves. And the
numbers of patients entering hospitals with the variant are surging to
staggering levels, filling up badly needed beds, delaying nonemergency
procedures and increasing the risk that vulnerable uninfected patients will
catch the virus.
But in Omicron hot spots from New York to Florida to Texas, a smaller
proportion of those patients are landing in intensive care units or requiring
mechanical ventilation, doctors said. And many — roughly 50 to 65 percent of
admissions in some New York hospitals — show up at the hospital for other
ailments and then test positive for the virus.
“We are seeing an increase in the number of hospitalizations,” said Dr. Rahul
Sharma, emergency physician in chief for NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell
hospital. But the severity of the disease looks different from previous waves,
he said. “We’re not sending as many patients to the I.C.U., we’re not
intubating as many patients, and actually, most of our patients that are coming
to the emergency department that do test positive are actually being
discharged.”
United States Covid-19
Hospitalizations<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html>
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html>
All timeLast 90 days
50,000
100,000 hospitalized
Feb. 2020
Mar.
Apr.
May
Jun.
Jul.
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb. 2021
Mar.
Apr.
May
Jun.
Jul.
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
7–day average
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The seven-day average is
the average of a day and the previous six days of data. Currently hospitalized
is the most recent number of patients with Covid-19 reported by hospitals in
the state for the four days prior. Dips and spikes could be due to inconsistent
reporting by hospitals. Hospitalization numbers early in the pandemic are
undercounts due to incomplete reporting by hospitals to the federal government.
∙ Holiday interruptions to testing and data reporting may affect case and
death trends.
Though it’s still early for firm predictions, the shift in hospital patterns
fits with emerging data that Omicron may be a variant with inherently milder
effects than those that have come before, less prone to infecting the
lungs<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/health/covid-omicron-lung-cells.html>,
where it can cause serious disease. But the lower proportion of severe cases is
also happening because, compared with previous variants, Omicron is infecting
more people who have some prior immunity, whether through prior infection or
vaccination. The vast majority of Omicron patients in I.C.U.s are unvaccinated
or have severely compromised immune systems, doctors said.
Hospitals, facing staff shortages, are under enormous strain. In New York City,
hospitalizations have exceeded the
peak<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/nyregion/hospitals-ny-covid.html> of
last winter’s surge. And Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland declared a state of
emergency<https://governor.maryland.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Proclamation-Jan-4-2022-corrected-date.pdf>
on Tuesday, noting that the state had more hospitalized Covid-19 patients at
that time than at any previous point during the pandemic.
“We’re in truly crushed mode,” said Dr. Gabe Kelen, director of the Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine’s emergency department.
The number of I.C.U. patients is a lagging indicator, likely to rise in the
coming weeks, experts said. What’s more, some states are still struggling under
the crush of hospitalizations from Delta, a previous version of the virus that
may be more virulent. (Hospitals are frequently in the dark about which variant
newly admitted patients are infected with.)
— Emily Anthes<https://www.nytimes.com/by/emily-anthes> and Azeen Ghorayshi
