London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Jul 10, 2025

Omicron surge is 'unlike anything we've ever seen,' expert says

Omicron surge is 'unlike anything we've ever seen,' expert says

An unprecedented spike in Covid-19 cases fueled by the fast-moving Omicron variant is crushing hospitals across the United States, with doctors describing packed emergency rooms as health experts implore New Year's Eve revelers to keep parties small and outdoors to help avert an even worse surge.

"It's unlike anything we've ever seen, even at the peak of the prior surges of Covid," Dr. James Phillips, who works in Washington, DC, said Wednesday, when the nation hit a new pandemic high of 300,886 average new daily cases over the prior week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

"What we're experiencing right now is an absolute overwhelming of the emergency departments" in Washington, Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital, told CNN's Jim Acosta.

It's a scene playing out across the country as record case counts are reported from New Jersey and New York to Arkansas and Chicago, where hospital bed capacity also is a concern. In Arizona and New Mexico, federal medical personnel have deployed to provide Covid-19 surge support.

And in Georgia, six major health systems with recent 100% to 200% jumps in Covid-19 hospitalizations -- with most patients unvaccinated -- joined to publicly urge people to seek coronavirus testing elsewhere so their emergency rooms can focus on those with critical needs.

Level of community spread across US

These categories, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are based on county-level data on the number of new cases per 100,000 people and the test positivity rate during the past seven days.


In Louisiana, Covid-19 hospitalizations have tripled in the past two weeks as a new record for cases was set, according to the state. Symptomatic patients have been showing up at Baton Rouge's Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center to get tested, said the chief medical officer, Dr. Catherine O'Neal.

"We're seeing an increase in admissions that is startling," she told CNN on Wednesday.

Many patients O'Neal sees are unvaccinated, she said. They often have more severe illness with pneumonia and need to be intubated or need high-flow oxygen. Others who haven't had a booster or are only partially vaccinated are suffering with a kind of flu-like illness and are "fragile," she said.

"They're older, they have heart failure, they have COPD, and they can't handle Covid, even when they're vaccinated," O'Neal said. "Luckily, most of those people are turning around after a couple days and going home, which is a good thing."

Nationwide, nearly 78% of ICU beds are in use, with 22% of those occupied by Covid-19 patients, according to data from the US Health and Human Services Department.

And pediatric hospital admissions for Covid-19 are the highest they've ever been over the course of the pandemic. On average, 378 children were admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 on any given day over the week that ended December 28, according to data published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health and Human Services. That is well above the previous record average of 342 admitted children seen at the end of August and early September.

Covid-19 patients in US hospitals

The purple line represents a snapshot of hospitalized patients reported each day.


Unvaccinated people "are 17 times more likely" to be hospitalized with Covid-19, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday. Some 62% of the total US population is fully vaccinated, and 33% of those have gotten a booster shot, data from the CDC shows.

"What I can tell you is that compared to people who are boosted, if you are unvaccinated, you are 10 times more likely to be a case and 20 times more likely to be a fatality," she said at a White House Covid-19 briefing.

Indeed, the number of lives the virus is claiming jumped this week by about 18%, for an average of 1,546 deaths each day, according to the data. And more than 44,000 people could die of Covid-19 in the next four weeks, according to an ensemble forecast from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Wednesday.

Cars wait in long lines at a drive-up Covid-19 testing center Wednesday at Tropical Park in Miami.


There was a little encouraging news this week. The Covid-19 case increase associated with the Omicron variant could peak in the US by the end of January, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNBC on Wednesday.

"It certainly peaked pretty quickly in South Africa, it went up almost vertically and turned around very quickly," he said. "I would imagine, given the size of our country, and the diversity of vaccination versus not vaccination, that it likely will be more than a couple of weeks, probably by the end of January, I would think."

New Year celebrations should be small, experts say


With the spike in Covid-19 cases, experts are urging Americans to practice caution as they celebrate the new year. Revelers should skip big indoor New Year's Eve parties, said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

"We're in the public health crisis of our lifetime," Reiner told CNN's Phil Mattingly on Thursday. And New York City's Times Square New Year's Eve celebration "should have been canceled," in part because attendees might "pack the subways" to get there, he said. The event has been scaled back, with fewer revelers and everyone required to wear a mask.

The Omicron variant "is extraordinarily contagious, and if you are in a crowd now, and certainly if you're unvaccinated, you are at great risk of contracting this virus," Reiner told CNN's Jake Tapper on Wednesday.

A small celebration at a friend's house should be OK if everyone is vaccinated and boosted and tested negative before the party, he said. Big outdoor parties are less risky unless they're crowded.

"I would not eat in a restaurant now without a mask," Reiner said Thursday. "I would absolutely not go into a bar."

People should avoid large New Year's Eve gatherings where they don't know the vaccination status of guests, Fauci said. Small gatherings of vaccinated family or close friends are safe, he said.

"When you are talking about a New Year's Eve party, where you have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of the vaccination -- I would recommend strongly, stay away from that this year. There will be other years to do that, but not this year," Fauci told Fox News.

New CDC isolation guidance faces criticism


Meantime, the CDC is defending itself against criticism over its guidance this week that shortened to five days the recommended time those with Covid-19 should isolate if they're asymptomatic. New research, combined with some infected people's reluctance to isolate for 10 days, spurred some of the latest guidance, Walensky said Wednesday.

"We know that the most amount of transmission occurs in those one to two days before you develop symptoms (to) those two to three days after you develop symptoms," she told CNN. "And if you map that out, those five days account for somewhere between 85% to 90% of all transmission that occurs."

So, for those who test positive but have no symptoms or dwindling symptoms at Day 5, "we shortened the time to encourage people to do the right thing," Walensky told CBS. "We don't want them out and about when they are maximally infectious."

The CDC is being too harshly criticized for changing the guidelines, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "Everything we're going to do right now is imperfect. Just accept that right now," Osterholm told CNN on Wednesday.

"We don't know a lot of the things we wish we'd know, but what we do know and what is emerging here is that this country is going to be in the soup in just the next few weeks with so many cases and so many locations, that we're going to see critical infrastructure as well as health care challenged," Osterholm added.

With the rapid spread of Omicron, there may not be enough people who are well enough to keep hospitals, grocery stores and gas stations working, Osterholm predicted. The change in CDC guidelines is not just about helping the economy, he said: "It was to play to the very safety of our everyday lives."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
NVIDIA Achieves Historic Milestone as First Company Valued at $4 Trillion
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as CEO of X After Two Years
US Imposes New Tariffs on Brazilian Exports Amid Political Tensions
Azerbaijan and Armenia are on the brink of a historic peace deal.
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Weinstein Victim’s Lawyer Says MeToo Movement Still Strong
U.S. Enacts Sweeping Tax and Spending Legislation Amid Trade Policy Shifts
Football Mourns as Diogo Jota and Brother André Silva Laid to Rest in Portugal
Labour Expected to Withdraw Support for Special Needs Funding Model
Leaked Audio Reveals Tory Aide Defending DEI Record
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
London Stock Exchange Faces Historic Low in Initial Public Offerings
A new online platform has emerged in the United Kingdom, specifically targeting Muslim men seeking virgin brides
Trump Celebrates Independence Day with B-2 Flyover and Signs Controversial Legislation
Boris Johnson Urges Conservatives to Ignore Farage
SNP Ordered to Update Single-Sex Space Guidance Within Days
Starmer Set to Reject Calls for Wealth Taxes
Stolen Century-Old Rolls-Royce Recovered After Hotel Theft
Macron Presses Starmer to Recognise Palestinian State
Labour Delayed Palestine Action Ban Over Riot Concerns
Swinney’s Tax Comments ‘Offensive to Scots’, Say Tories
High Street Retailers to Enforce Bans on Serial Shoplifters
Music Banned by Henry VIII to Be Performed After 500 Years
Steve Coogan Says Working Class Is Being ‘Ethnically Cleansed’
Home Office Admits Uncertainty Over Visa Overstayer Numbers
JD Vance Questions Mandelson Over Reform Party’s Rising Popularity
Macron to Receive Windsor Carriage Ride in Royal Gesture
Labour Accused of ‘Hammering’ Scots During First Year in Power
BBC Head of Music Stood Down Amid Bob Vylan Controversy
Corbyn Eyes Hard-Left Challenge to Starmer’s Leadership
London Tube Trains Suspended After Major Fire Erupts Nearby
Richard Kemp: I Felt Safer in Israel Under Attack Than in the UK
Cyclist Says Police Cited Human Rights Act for Riding No-Handed
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
AI Raises Alarms Over Long-Term Job Security
Saudi Arabia Maintains Ties with Iran Despite Israel Conflict
Musk Battles to Protect Tesla Amid Trump Policy Threats
Air France-KLM Acquires Majority Stake in Scandinavian Airlines
UK Educators Sound Alarm on Declining Child Literacy
Shein Fined €40 Million in France Over Misleading Discounts
Brazil’s Lula Visits Kirchner During Argentina House Arrest
Trump Scores Legislative Win as House Passes Tax Reform Bill
Keir Starmer Faces Criticism After Rocky First Year in Power
DJI Launches Heavy-Duty Coaxial Quadcopter with 80 kg Lift Capacity
U.S. Senate Approves Major Legislation Dubbed the 'Big Beautiful Bill'
Largest Healthcare Fraud Takedown in U.S. History Announced by DOJ
×