Experts believe Omicron variant to peak soon and expect cases will fall dramatically in the US



Some health experts say that Omicron cases may peak and fall dramatically in the United States based on the pattern documented of the variant spread in Britain and South Africa.

The reason for that hopeful prediction is fairly simple: The Omicron variant is so contagious that it will run out of people to infect very soon.

“It’s going to come down as fast as it went up,” said health metrics sciences professor Ali Mokdad of the University of Washington in Seattle.

According to a model developed at the University of Washington, coronavirus cases in the U.S. should peak at about Jan. 19 at about 1.2 million daily reported cases. Cases will likely begin to drop "simply because everybody who could be infected will be infected," said Mokdad.

Government data showed that daily cases in Britain dropped to 140,000 after rising to 200,000 earlier in January. That pattern followed a similar curve in South Africa and may repeat itself in the U.S. in the coming weeks.

But experts are cautious about drawing hasty conclusions.

"We are seeing a definite falling-off of cases in the U.K., but I'd like to see them fall much further before we know if what happened in South Africa will happen here," said Professor of Medicine Dr. Paul Hunter of University of East Anglia in Britain.

The World Health Organization cited the modeling from the University of Washington to predict that half of the population in Europe will be infected with Omicron through the next eight weeks.

Experts say that people should still stick to social distancing guidelines to avoid getting ill.

"It's going to be a tough two or three weeks. We have to make hard decisions to let certain essential workers continue working, knowing they could be infectious," added Mokdad.

A separate study found that patients suffering from the Omicron infection were far less likely to die from it, and far less likely to need serious hospitalization, bolstering hopes that the seriousness of the pandemic could be mitigated significantly.

Some local governments are already reviving lockdown procedures over the spread of the Omicron variant. In Sonoma County in California, health officials banned large gatherings and asked people to avoid contact with people outside of their household for a month to prevent their hospitals from being overwhelmed.

Here's more about the Omicron variant:

New data shows risk of death from omicron is 91% lower than delta l GMAwww.youtube.com

UC San Francisco director of ER COVID response: The real crisis facing California hospitals isn't Omicron cases, it's strict quarantine rules



A doctor with the University of California San Francisco hospital system is sounding the alarm on the real crisis facing hospitals: staffing shortages made worse by the state's strict quarantine rules.

Dr. Jeanne Noble, an associate professor of emergency medicine at UCSF, explained to SFGATE that public officials panicking over the surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations are neglecting to account for incidental positives — people who test positive for COVID at the hospital after being admitted for unrelated reasons. Failing to recognize this important distinction has led reported COVID hospitalization rates to "greatly exaggerate COVID burden," Noble, the director of COVID response for UCSF's emergency department, said on Twitter this week.

"The real COVID crisis that our hospitals are facing is a severe staffing shortage that is compromising the quality of our care," Noble told SFGATE.

As currently reported, COVID hospitalization rates greatly exaggerate COVID burden. Incidental positives account for large majority of hospitalized cases in both LA and Bay Area.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_6aQSCB0FE\u00a0\u2026
— Dr. Jeanne Noble (@Dr. Jeanne Noble) 1641796654

Her diagnosis comes as California is considering canceling elective surgeries because hospitals are inadequately staffed to care for patients, SFGATE reports. To deal with the problem, the California Department of Public Health has controversially loosened isolation and quarantine requirements for health care workers, which will allow COVID-positive and exposed staff to return to work more quickly. Staff who are asymptomatic will not have to quarantine but must wear N95 masks and as much as possible work with patients who are already COVID-positive.

These measures are being adopted in anticipation of a flood of COVID cases that public officials warn could overwhelm hospitals. But Noble thinks those concerns don't reflect the reality of the Omicron variant.

She made her case after examining the charts of every COVID-positive patient at UCSF hospitals on Jan. 4 , discovering that 70% of them were in the hospital for other reasons. Noble said she looked at four UCSF campuses (UCSF Parnassus, Mission Bay, Mount Zion, and Children’s Hospital of Oakland) and identified 44 hospitalized patients, including adults and children, who had COVID. Of those patients, just 13 had been admitted to the hospital because of COVID.

The other 31 patients tested positive after being admitted for unrelated reasons, including a hip fracture and a bowel obstruction. Noble said they are all "completely asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic," highlighting how the Omicron variant causes less severe disease than previous variants.

SFGATE added that while case counts are breaking records in California, fewer people are hospitalized with COVID today compared to this time last year. And in highly vaccinated areas such as Los Angeles, where 71% of eligible people are vaccinated, two-thirds of hospital cases were identified on screening for the virus, according to the L.A. Times, meaning they weren't sent to the hospital because of COVID, only found to have it after the fact.

"The crisis from the Omicron peak is not generated by serious COVID illness in regions with highly vaxxed populations," Noble said. "The crisis we are suffering in the Bay Area is largely driven by disruptive COVID policies that encourage asymptomatic testing and subsequent quarantines. ... The vast majority of COVID-plus patients I take care of need no medical care and are quickly discharged home with reassurance."

Such disruptive isolation policies have contributed to hospital staffing shortages, closed businesses, shut down public transportation, contributed to long lines at testing sites, and prevented some children from attending school in person, SFGATE reported.

Meanwhile, Noble said her patients with COVID are not suffering from severe disease during the omicron surge.

“[Emergency departments] are flooded with the worried well that are simply seeking testing and reassurance,” she said. “I have not intubated a single COVID patient during this Omicron surge. We have a total of 5 patients with COVID on ventilators across our 4 hospitals. An average of 1.25 intubated COVID patients per hospital is a good news story."

During the pandemic, COVID hospitalizations have been the metric by which public health officials have implemented various restrictions on individuals and businesses. The Trump administration's infamous "15 days to slow the spread" social distancing guidelines were enacted to protect hospitals from reaching over-capacity with COVID patients.

But some experts question the need for strict coronavirus policies if most people aren't being sent to the hospital because of COVID, especially with so many Americans being vaccinated and protected from severe disease and death. They also point out that as hospitals nationwide report incidental coronavirus cases, total COVID hospitalizations become a less relevant measure for policymakers.

As public officials grapple with this knowledge, the U.S. is firmly in the grip of a coronavirus surge. According to NBC News, a record-breaking 1.34 million new COVID cases were reported Monday. The seven-day average for cases in the U.S. also reached a record high of 740,594 cases per day, with 24 states reporting their highest seven-day average of all time. Hospitalizations with or for COVID are soaring as well, reaching 135,574 as of Monday, an 83.1% increase in the last two weeks. The fact that some people could have asymptomatic or mild Omicron cases without getting tested means these numbers are likely an underestimate of the true number of COVID cases in the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday that "the entire country is now experiencing high levels of community transmission."

"While early data suggest omicron infections might be less severe than those of other variants, the increases in cases and hospitalizations are expected to stress the healthcare system in the coming weeks," the CDC said in its weekly COVID review.

But who is going to the hospital for COVID? How many people are in the hospital for other illnesses and test positive incidentally? Those questions matter, and the government doesn't have answers.

Biden: 'There is no federal solution' to coronavirus pandemic



President Joe Biden put responsibility for ending the coronavirus pandemic on state governments, admitting "there is no federal solution" to the Omicron variant during a White House COVID-19 briefing with the National Governors Association.

The White House's COVID-19 task force held its 40th call with the NGA on Monday, with the president addressing about 25 state governors virtually before hosting a closed-door question-and-answer session on the federal response to the virus.

Speaking ahead of the president, NGA Chairman Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, thanked Biden for his administration's efforts but raised concerns that the federal plan to increase testing capacity with a half-billion at-home COVID-19 tests could interfere with "the supply chain for solutions we might offer as governor."

In response, Biden said that state governments are ultimately responsible for fighting the Omicron variant by getting people vaccinated, including with booster shots.

"Look, there is no federal solution. This gets solved at a state level," the president said. "And then ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that's where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help."

"As I said last week, Omicron is a source of concern but it should not be a source of panic," Biden reiterated. "If you're fully vaccinated, you get your booster shot and you're highly protected. If you're unvaccinated, you're at a high risk of getting severely ill from COVID-19, being hospitalized, and in rare cases even dying."

He said that if governors need federal help, they must "say something," summarizing the actions his administration has taken to follow through with his coronavirus response plan.

Last week, Biden announced a federal plan to provide 500 million at-home rapid tests that will be given to Americans for free. But the government was unable to deliver those tests before holiday travel began, and hundreds of flights were canceled over the weekend as airline staff tested positive for the virus.

The president did concede that demand for COVID-19 testing has so far outstripped his administration's ability to provide testing kits, acknowledging that the sight of long testing lines over Christmas weekend "shows that we have more work to do."

"The bottom line is I want to assure the American people that we're prepared," Biden said. "We know what it takes, and as this group of bipartisan governors has shown, we're gonna get through by working together."

Biden's remarks were immediately criticized by the Republican National Committee, which pointed out that as a presidential candidate, Biden promised to "shut down the virus" and now says there is no federal solution to do so.

BIDEN, TODAY: \u201cThere is no federal solution\u201d to COVID.\n\nBIDEN, 2020: \u201cI\u2019m going to shut down the virus.\u201dpic.twitter.com/3d1RaHRcyX
— RNC Research (@RNC Research) 1640623403

Fauci says Americans should avoid large gatherings for New Year's Eve



The White House's chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, recommended Monday that Americans cancel their plans to go out for New Year's Eve because of the risk that the Omicron coronavirus variant will spread at parties.

"I would stay away from that," Fauci told CNN's "New Day" when asked about the year-end parties many people will attend.

He stated that small gatherings with vaccinated family members or close friends would be safe, but larger, mixed gatherings with people you may not know could pose a risk.

"I have been telling people consistently that if you're vaccinated and boosted and you have a family setting, in the home with family and relatives," it's OK to gather, Fauci explained. "But when you're talking about a New Year's Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of their vaccination, I would recommend strongly stay away from that this year."

Dr. Anthony Fauci says he recommends that people "stay away" from large New Year\u2019s Eve gatherings where they don\u2019t know the vaccination status of guests.\n\n"There will be other years to do that, but not this year," he says.\nhttps://cnn.it/3pviwmP\u00a0pic.twitter.com/5eaEpVfWhd
— New Day (@New Day) 1640613078

Fauci's comments come as states with some of the strictest restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are seeing daily cases spike to levels higher than last winter's pandemic peak.

The New York Times reported that Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Puerto Rico are among the areas that have reported more coronavirus cases in the past week than in any other seven-day period. On Friday, the seven-day national average of new daily cases surpassed 197,000, a 65% increase over the last two weeks, data shows.

Hospitalizations and deaths have increased as well, but not nearly as much as positive virus cases. There were about 71,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations reported Friday, an increase of about 8% over previous weeks but substantially below previous peaks. Deaths increased by 3% over the past 14 days, to a seven-day average of 1,345 nationally.

Fauci predicted that the U.S. will continue to see cases surge because of the Omicron variant but suggested they may soon fall as they did in South Africa.

“We're certainly going to continue to see a surge for a while, Kaitlan. I fully expect that it will turn around. I hope it turns around as sharply as what we've seen in South Africa,” Fauci told CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

He acknowledged that the Omicron variant appears to cause less severe disease, but warned that high cases can still put a strain on health care infrastructure.

“It looks like the degree of severity of the disease is considerably less than they experienced with Delta. We’re seeing inklings of that now in the United States. The U.K. is also seeing that. So I do hope that we do have the net effect is a diminution in the degree of severity,” Fauci said.

“But the sheer volume of cases that we're seeing now — yesterday we had 214,000 cases. Even with a diminution in severity, we still could have a surge on hospitals, particularly among the unvaccinated, which we’re really worried about," he continued, adding it's "possible" but unlikely that the U.S. could see 500,000 new cases in a single day.

He emphasized the importance of vaccination and booster shots to protect against severe illness.

“There are so many things that we can do to mitigate against that. The thing we keep talking about is that, you know, if you're not vaccinated, get vaccinated. But importantly, boosters are really looming as something very, very important,” Fauci said.

“Boosters are always good for any variant, but particularly for Omicron. If you are vaccinated and not yet boosted and your time comes for getting boosted, please get boosted. It's going to make all the difference to prevent you from getting severe disease," he added.