> Though the silver lining here is that we're clearly getting to a true "pan" pandemic with omicron, and still not seeing evidence of significant health care overload or increased death rates.
With omicron the chances that a given case ends up in the hospital is significantly lower than it was with previous variants, but because the case count is so much higher (7-day average of new cases per day over the last week in the US went from 387k to 648k) the number of people hospitalized for COVID is now higher than it has been during even the peaks of the worst prior waves.
Heck, I'm in a state that has always been in the bottom 10 for cases and deaths (and often in the bottom 5) and I'm in a county in that state that has been mostly been in the bottom 10% within the state, and our hospitals are hitting their limits for the first time since COVID started.
With omicron the chances that a given case ends up in the hospital is significantly lower than it was with previous variants, but because the case count is so much higher (7-day average of new cases per day over the last week in the US went from 387k to 648k) the number of people hospitalized for COVID is now higher than it has been during even the peaks of the worst prior waves.
Heck, I'm in a state that has always been in the bottom 10 for cases and deaths (and often in the bottom 5) and I'm in a county in that state that has been mostly been in the bottom 10% within the state, and our hospitals are hitting their limits for the first time since COVID started.