“This omigran variant is unusually contagious. It’s contagious like measles, and it’s about the most contagious virus we’ve ever seen,” CNN medical researcher Jonathan Rainer said Saturday.
The World Health Organization said Saturday that Omigron cases are doubling every 1.5 to 3 days in countries with documented prevalence.
In the United States, Omicron is expected to become a “dominant strain” in the coming weeks, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Scientists say it is too early to say whether Omigron will cause a milder form of Govit-19 disease. But regardless, it will put pressure on the health system, Rainer said.
“Why are you going to such a war completely unarmed?” he said. “Our vaccines will protect you, especially if you have triple vaccinated. Those who have not been unvaccinated should start the procedure now. Go ahead and get vaccinated at your pharmacy.”
Rainer, a professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences, said he believes almost everyone will be exposed to the virus – but those who have been vaccinated three times will not be infected with Kovit-19.
“But I do not think we should throw our hands in the air and say, ‘Look, we’re all going to get it, so let’s burn it all over the country.’ In that case, our hospitals would be flooded.”
Although Omigron causes less severe infections than Delta, the number of infections that Omigron can produce could overwhelm U.S. hospitals, Rainer said.
“We need to protect our health care system, which is why every American must now mask and wax up because our health infrastructure is at risk right now,” he said.
New York tops the list of daily new cases
“It’s not like the beginning of an epidemic,” Hochul said in a statement on Saturday. “We’re ready for the winter surge because we have the tools.”
In New York City, Govt-19 cases have more than doubled since the beginning of the week until Saturday, December 13th. According to data released by the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio, those admitted to Covit-19 Hospital remained the same throughout the week, with a slight increase in the number of hospital admissions on Saturday.
Dr. Craig Spencer, Director of Global Health and Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, said: “We are definitely going to get a tsunami of cases.
The uprising has already hit the entertainment industry in the city.
Hospitals are feeling the effects
New York is not the only state struggling with Covit-19 data.
California health officials said Friday they saw hospital admissions numbers going up, emphasizing the need for vaccines and booster vaccines.
In New Jersey, Dr. Sheriff Elnahall, president and CEO of the University Hospital, said, “We see long queues outside our testing clinic, and the test is more in demand than we have seen in several months, because everyone is sick.” Newark.
The number of hospital admissions has doubled in the past two weeks, and 46% of those admitted to the hospital earlier this week were vaccinated but did not have a booster shot, he said.
Dr. Rob Davidson, an emergency room physician in Michigan, said, “I see a very important delta uprising right now.” While he sees a slight decrease in the test positive rate, Kovit-19 patients have been hospitalized for a long time.
Dr. Mark Corelik, president of Minnesota Hospital for Children, said the facility is already struggling to cope with the numbers.
“When you’ve already at the peak of an upsurge with 90%, 95% efficiency, that extra … preventable covit patients coming in is something that pushes the system to the edge. That’s what we see here in Minnesota,” Corelik said Friday.
In Oregon, authorities forecast a worsening situation in early 2022.
“We expect the number of people to be admitted to Oregon Hospital in mid-January, and infections will start sooner than that,” said Dr. Peter Craven, a data scientist at the University of Oregon Health and Science.
“Along with its high prevalence, we expect Omigran to produce a large increase in the number of Oregonians who will become seriously ill and require hospitalization.”
Scientists are working to measure the severity of omigran
As hospitals continue to realize the burden of Govit-19 infections, scientists are racing to gather more information about the severity of the Omigron variant.
The CDC said it had seen 43 cases of Omigran last week, most of which had mild symptoms. Most were vaccinated, and one-third of the total group was increased.
“We’ve seen cases of Omigran among vaccinators and motivators, and we believe these cases are mild or asymptomatic because of vaccine protection. We know we have the tools to protect ourselves against Covit-19. Vaccines. We have boosters,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walsen. Said Friday.
Data from two weeks of South African cases indicate that the severity of omigran is low. But UK epidemiologists last week said there was no evidence that Omigron was causing mild illness there – and the Imperial College London team said there was not much data yet.
The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. A.S. Francis Collins said.
But it’s clear that Omigron is the most contagious variant, doubling it every two to four days, ” Collins said Friday.
“The problem, of course, is that if it is so contagious – we can see hundreds of thousands of cases every day, even a million cases a day from Omigran – even if it’s a little low, you have to have a lot of people in the hospital you go to and our hospitals already stretch along the delta, especially in the north of the country In the area, “Collins said.
CNN’s Christina McSoris, Artemis Moshtakian and Laura Stadley contributed to the report.