Rise In Omicron Variant Infections Due To Reluctance To Be Vaccinated Burdens Hospitals, Doctors: Many Unnecessary Deaths

JAKARTA - The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States is poised to hit a new high on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, topping the record set in January last year as the highly contagious variant of Omicron sparked a spike in infections.

Hospitalizations have steadily increased since late December, when Omicron quickly overtook Delta as the dominant Coronavirus variant in the United States, although experts say the Omicron variant will likely prove less lethal than previous iterations.

However, health officials have warned that the sheer number of infections caused by Omicron is putting a strain on hospitals, some of which are struggling to keep up with the influx of patients because their own workers are sick.

"It's like a medical output bottleneck", said Dr. Peter Dillon, a Chief Clinical Officer at Penn State Health in Pennsylvania, in an interview, citing Reuters on January 8.

"There are so many forces now contributing to the challenge and I think there is an element, I don't want to say despair, but exhaustion", he explained.

The United States reported 662,000 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the fourth-highest daily total in the US, just three days after a record nearly 1 million cases hit, according to a Reuters tally.

US COVID-19 hospitalizations near 123,000, looking poised to break records above 132,000, according to the tally. Deaths, a lagging indicator, remain fairly steady at around 1,400 per day, well below last year's peak.

However, hospitalization data often do not differentiate between people being treated for COVID-19, and so-called incidental cases involving people being treated for other reasons found to be infected during routine testing.

In New York, 42 percent of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 were in the incidental category, Governor Kathy Hochul said at a briefing on Friday, a sign how the data may not provide the clearest picture of Omicron's impact in terms of severe disease.

As the number of hospitalizations continues to rise in New York, Hochul and other state officials expressed optimism that the worst Omicron wave could pass in the coming days.

"We need a few more days to know that it has peaked", said Dr. Mary Bassett, New York Health Commissioner.

"I think we can expect a difficult January but things will be much better in February", she believes.

Meanwhile, rising cases have forced hospital systems in nearly half of US states to postpone elective surgeries, a reflection of the pressure on the healthcare sector, which lost about 3,100 workers according to Friday's monthly US employment report.

Several doctors and nurses have expressed frustration at the surge among unvaccinated patients, saying they cannot understand why someone ignores a doctor's advice to be vaccinated, but then seeks professional medical help after becoming ill with COVID-19.

"A lot of these are unnecessary deaths", said Lynne Kokoczka, clinical nurse specialist in the intensive care unit at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, shortly after she helped get dead COVID-19 patients out of the ward.

Ninety percent of patients in mechanically ventilated intensive care at the Cleveland Clinic are not vaccinated, says Dr. Hassan Khouli, chair of the critical care medicine department at the academic medical center.

"This really weighs on our team. Fatigue is the main concern", said Khouli.

To note, officials continue to press for vaccination as the best protection against serious illness, despite the federal mandate requiring it to be a matter of political debate.

In a closely watched mandate test, a conservative US Supreme Court judge on Friday questioned President Joe Biden's vaccine or testing requirements for big business but appeared more receptive to mandates for healthcare facilities at a time of soaring COVID-19 infections.