A growing chorus of voices is sounding the alarm about the Covid-19 pandemic’s likely trajectory in the United States, where hospitals—already overwhelmed by a post-Thanksgiving spike in Delta cases—are bracing for a massive surge in infections driven to a growing extent by the even more contagious Omicron variant, which is running rampant ahead of major holiday gatherings. “Whether out of complacency or exhaustion, we ignore this at our own peril.” “We’re really just about to experience a viral blizzard,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN‘s Erin Burnett on Thursday. “In the next three to eight weeks,” he said, “we’re going to see millions of Americans are going to be infected with this virus, and that will be overlaid on top of Delta, and we’re not yet sure exactly how that’s going to work out.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) briefed state health leaders earlier this week, presenting “two scenarios, based on models, for how the variant might drive infections in the next few weeks and months,” The Guardian reported Thursday. “Omicron and Delta cases could peak as soon as January or a smaller surge of Omicron could happen in the spring.” According to Céline Gounder, infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at New York University and Bellevue Hospital, it remains to be seen whether Delta or Omicron will be dominant in the coming weeks, or if the two strains will coexist. Regardless, she said, “we anticipate an increase in hospitalizations, an increase in deaths, and an increase in the burden on the healthcare system over the next couple of months.” CDC data shows that the Omicron variant accounted for almost 3% of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. as of Saturday—up from just 0.4% the week before. Scientists have attributed the rapid spread of the recently detected variant to its high transmissibility. A new study by researchers from the University of Hong Kong’s LKS Faculty of Medicine, which has not yet been published and is currently under peer review, found that the Omicron variant “infects and multiplies 70 times faster” than the Delta variant and the original coronavirus strain in the human bronchi. They also learned that Omicron infection in the lungs is “significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity.” However, The Guardian noted, “it is still too early to tell if Omicron is more or less deadly than previous variants.” “The virulence really depends on the age of the person we’re talking about, as well as other demographics, but age is probably the most important one,” said Gounder. “With the early data coming out of South Africa, much of that was in young, relatively healthy, college-student-aged people.” The Guardian added that available evidence “does indicate the variant is more transmissible and immune-evasive, making infection more likely among those who are vaccinated or have recovered from earlier bouts with the virus.” Even if the Omicron variant turns out to be less virulent than previous strains, its rapid spread—Covid-19 cases are doubling roughly every two days in the United Kingdom—could be more than enough to inundate the United States’ hospitals and cause the nation’s pandemic death toll, already above 800,000, to keep climbing. As journalist David Wallace-Wells explained in a New York magazine essay published on Wednesday:
The largest study to date on early South African data… found that, overall, those with Omicron were experiencing 29% less severe disease than those who got sick in the country’s first pandemic wave. Other, independent assessments have yielded lower—which is to say, more encouraging—estimates: Perhaps Omicron’s severity is lower by two-thirds, perhaps even less.
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