Hospitalizations in the United States may have peaked, the highest day being January 14, 2022 with almost 152,000 Americans hospitalized for COVID-19. Actually, I wrote that hopeful first sentence yesterday and, I was dead wrong, the number of hospitalizations has slipped even higher. We may not be at the peak yet, but hopefully soon. As of January 18, 2022 over 153,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19. More people are hospitalized with COVID-19 now than at any other time in the pandemic.
Some think that hitting the peak would mean that we are in the clear. However that is NOT the case. If the downward slope is more gradual that the initial ascent, then you can see more cases and death through out the decline than you saw during the rise. More people die as after reaching the peak of Everest that on the ascent to the peak.
America is seeing way more hospitalizations than any other developed country. This is likely because vaccination rates are so low in America. Our World in Data reported that of all the countries included in its analysis, the U.S. has the lowest proportion of its population that is fully vaccinated and also the lowest rate of booster shots administered.
“Overall, a smaller percentage of reported cases were hospitalized compared to the Delta wave (about 2% versus about 5%), but there were more total hospitalizations due to significantly greater case numbers,” a report by New York City’s health department concluded last week.
Another problem is that the Omicron variant hit America as we were still in the midst of a huge Delta spike. Thankfully Omicron displaced Delta, infecting far more people while being a bit less deadly.
The Omicron variant is less likely to lead to hospitalization than other variants, data suggests, but it’s so transmissible that hospitalizations are spiking anyway because so many people are being infected all at once.The hope is that the numbers will drop as fast as they spiked upwards to reach this peak. Those unvacinated who survive will have some level of immunity going forward. Those who were fully vaccinated and boosted who also get infected may develop “super immunity.”