By Mark A. Van Sumeren
January 31, 2022 – Healthcare professionals have served us unselfishly during the now two-year-long pandemic. Surging Omicron cases pushed these caregivers to the point of exhaustion. Fortunately, the past week brought a measure of relief.
Omicron-infected patients occupied half of all inpatient beds in the United States earlier this month. Staffing became a nightmare, as Covid infections sidelined a sizable share of the available caregiver pool.
Mercifully, hospitals admitted fewer Covid patients each day for the past two weeks. Covid patient census followed suit, falling for six consecutive days. We anticipate further declines in both measures in the weeks ahead. A CDC-published forecast anticipates a 25% drop in admissions over the next four weeks. An ensemble forecast suggests that admissions and patient census fall to pre-Omicron levels by the end of February.
Ten states account for more than half of all Covid patients. Each of these states witnessed declining census recently – New York’s plunged 43% from its latest peak; Illinois, 40%; and Florida, 20%. The CDC forecasts further declines for the foreseeable future.
Further relief arises from a mild flu experience in the U.S. Flu visits waned for the third consecutive week without reaching typical peak levels.
Tragically, more people died with Covid last week than the prior week, a trend set in motion earlier this month by the Omicron surge. Experts do not envision this pattern to reverse itself for another two weeks. Nonetheless, despite substantially greater infection spread, deaths are 30 to 40% lower than a year ago.
Several factors may contribute to this improvement:
- improved therapeutics and treatment
- lowered severity via vaccination and antibodies from prior infection
- lessened virulence of Omicron variant relative to prior ones
Driving the recent relief on the healthcare system is an ebbing Omicron wave in the U.S. Reported cases (7-day average) peaked on January 13, dropping by one-fourth since that day. Infections, including unreported cases, likely peaked several days earlier. An ensemble forecast predicts that infections continue to recede through at least the end of February. A separate CDC-published model suggests that infections will fall to pre-Omicron levels by that time and should continue falling through the Spring.
Forty-one states saw declining cases last week, hinting at a widespread easing of the Omicron wave. New York’s reported case rate tumbled 75% since peaking on January 11. Alternatively, Montana’s reported case rate spiked 56% last week.