![]() ![]() ![]() If Omicron is, for example, 30% less severe, but new cases go up by five times, “that’s still awful, far more hospitalizations & deaths than comparable Delta surge,” Wachter wrote. Robert Wachter, chair of the UC San Francisco Department of Medicine, said even if Omicron tends to produce less severe disease, a much higher rate of transmission could still lead to far more people sick than would be expected for earlier variants, and still result in overwhelmed hospitals. Federal health officials say Omicron accounted for an estimated 73% of new infections.ĭr. Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S. World & Nation Omicron sweeps across nation - now 73% of U.S. “The Central Valley has always been hit so hard by a lot of waves,” and given its relative lack of vaccination uptake, “that’s going to give them less insurance for what’s coming up.” With Omicron, “natural alone doesn’t seem to protect you as well,” Chin-Hong said. A key problem with Omicron is that it may have a higher chance of reinfecting people who previously survived a coronavirus infection but still haven’t been vaccinated. County to transfer patients there, underscoring the Central Valley’s vulnerability, Chin-Hong said. It’s unvaccinated people who will still be at highest risk for requiring hospitalization and dying.Įven before Omicron, places like Fresno County during its Delta surge was seeking help from L.A. While Omicron is expected to result in more breakthrough infections among vaccinated people compared to earlier variants - making them more vulnerable to being contagious and suffering mild symptoms - it’s likely that they will largely still be protected against severe illness and death. The San Joaquin Valley’s hospitals have been overwhelmed since the Delta surge began the Bay Area’s hospitals have not sounded similar alarms. That pattern would be similar to this year’s Delta surge, where the San Joaquin Valley’s peak summer hospitalization rate was twice as worse as Southern California’s and nearly three times as bad as the Bay Area’s. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco. ![]() County, a medium jump and the Central Valley the highest jump, said Dr. One possibility is that the Bay Area will see a relatively small jump in hospitalizations L.A. and Orange counties, whose vaccination rates are somewhere in between, may see an impact that falls in the middle. By contrast, experts are especially nervous about places with low vaccination rates, like the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley. The San Francisco Bay Area has some of the highest vaccination rates in state, and officials there believe that could help slow Omicron. It’s also possible that parts of highly vaccinated coastal California might be able to withstand the variant better than inland areas, which have struggled with getting residents inoculated as well as promoting mask wearing in indoor public places. There remains much unknown about Omicron, but experts say it has the potential to overwhelm hospitals, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates. With Omicron spreading across the United States with stunning speed, California officials and experts are trying to game how the highly infectious variant of the coronavirus will spread through the state and exactly what the response should be to the threat. ![]()
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