Omicron’s burden on health system apparent in new data
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Omicron has taxed the country’s health care system, causing more COVID-19 cases, ED visits and hospitalizations than any other variant during the pandemic, according to newly published data.
But researchers also found that infection with the highly transmissible variant has been less likely to result in severe illness or death.
“Although disease severity appears lower with the omicron variant, the high volume of hospitalizations can strain local health care systems and the average daily number of deaths remains substantial,” A. Danielle Iuliano, PhD, a member of the CDC COVID-19 Emergency Response Team, and colleagues wrote in MMWR.
“This underscores the importance of national emergency preparedness, specifically, hospital surge capacity and the ability to adequately staff local health care systems when critical care needs arise and before the system is overwhelmed,” they wrote.
Omicron accounts for almost all new cases of COVID-19, representing 99.5% of sequenced specimens in the U.S. as of Jan. 15, Iuliano and colleagues reported.
For their study, they used data from three surveillance systems and a large health care database to assess the severity of disease and health care burden associated with omicron during three high transmission periods the initial 3 months of the pandemic, last summer and fall’s delta wave, and the early omicron period from Dec. 19, 2021, through Jan. 15, 2022.
The data showed that the highest daily 7-day average of cases (798,976), ED visits (48,238) and admissions (21,586) were reported during the omicron period. However, the highest daily 7-day average of deaths (1,854) was lower during the omicron period than the previous two periods.
Other measures provided evidence of omicron’s effect. A maximum of 20.6% of staff inpatient beds were in use for patients with COVID-19 during the omicron wave 3.4 and 7.2 percentage points higher than during the first 3 months and the delta wave, respectively. And 30.4% of ICU beds were in use 0.5 and 1.2 percentage points lower than the other two periods, respectively.
Iuliano and colleagues also found that the ratio of peak ED visits to cases, hospital admissions and deaths during the omicron period were lower than the other periods, as were the mean length of stay and the percentage of patients who were admitted to an ICU, received invasive mechanical ventilation or died while in the hospital.
They attributed the decreased severity to higher vaccination coverage, lower virulence of the omicron variant and infection-acquired immunity.
A report published last week showed that being boosted provides the best protection against the omicron variant, officials said.
Perspective
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This is an important report that documents how the omicron wave led to a huge increase in cases and ED visits. There was also a significant increase in hospitalizations, but as a percentage of the cases and ED visits, this was lower than in prior waves, including the delta wave. In addition, ICU use and deaths were much lower than during prior waves. As the report suggests, this apparent lower severity of disease is likely multifactorial, but important is that a much higher percent of the population has been vaccinated and even boosted. Immunity from prior infection and lower virulence of the omicron variant probably also play a role. It is, however, very important to note that although severity may be lower, the extremely high number of hospitalizations caused by the huge number of cases strained many health care systems.
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