Nomi Health employees line up to get tested for COVID-19 Tuesday in North Miami, Fla. The omicron variant has unleashed fear and uncertainty for tourists, shoppers and partygoers across the US.
Marta Lavandier / AP
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Marta Lavandier / AP
Nomi Health employees line up to get tested for COVID-19 Tuesday in North Miami, Fla. The omicron variant has unleashed fear and uncertainty for tourists, shoppers and partygoers across the US.
Marta Lavandier / AP
A new analysis by the University of Washington shows that increase omicron will peak in a major wave of infections in late January but is likely to cause less severe illness for most people.
The analysis predicts the omicron wave will infect more than 400,000 people a day in the US as it flares up in about six weeks. This is much higher than the 250,000 people contracting the virus a day at the height of last winter’s spike.
But the researchers estimate that most people who catch omicrons won’t get sick or only get mildly sick. As a result, the rate of hospitalization and death from omicrons would be much lower, the analysis concluded.
Other researchers question whether there is enough evidence to reliably estimate how omicrons cause disease in humans. But they agree that the sheer number of people infected with the virus could still overwhelm hospitals.
“Can that even be based?” Natalie Dean, a biostatistician and epidemiologist at Emory University, wrote in an email to NPR. “Evidence of reduced severity is suggestive but still very early.”
Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says that with so many unknowns about omicrons today, he would make any forecast “like a drop in salt”.
“Some of the qualitative things they’re saying seem a bit plausible, but it’s hard to say for sure at this point,” Lessler said in an email to NPR. “I would certainly say that there are still too many unknowns about Omicron right now to give what I would consider an official forecast or a single projection.”
“I think there’s some chance they’re right, but I can’t think of what data those mortality numbers could be based on at this point,” Lessler wrote.
Globally, the analysis predicts that the world will see 3 billion infections or more in the next three months, said Dr Chris Murray, director of the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. equal to two years of the pandemic. .
The researchers predict there could be 35 million new cases per day around the world by mid-January, or three times the previous peak daily infection rate.
President Joe Biden on Monday announced its plans to combat the rise in the United States, sending half a billion home testing kits and support groups to Hospitals can be overwhelmed by new cases.
NPR’s John Helton contributed to this report.
