U.S. – Omicron surge overwhelms hospitals
Covid19 hospitalisations in the United States are poised to hit a new high as early as Friday, according to a Reuters tally, surpassing the record set in January of last year as the highly contagious Omicron variant fuels a surge in infections.
Hospitalizations have increased steadily since late December as Omicron quickly overtook Delta as the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States, although experts say Omicron will likely prove less deadly than prior iterations.
Despite the astronomic rise in Omicron related Covid cases nationwide, there is hope that the number will fall just as fast, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday at a media briefing her first without the rest of the White House’s Covid19 Task Force in nearly six months.
Officials continue to press vaccinations as the best protection against serious illness, although federal mandates requiring them have become politically contentious.
Some doctors and nurses expressed frustration at the surge among unvaccinated patients, saying they could not understand why someone would ignore a doctor’s advice to get vaccinated but then seek a medical professional’s help once sick with Covid19.
