The number of daily COVID-19 cases has reached 1.35 million! And the number of new cases continues to increase

On Tuesday, January 11, 2022, the United States reported the number of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases on Monday, breaking through again to 1.35 million! Although, as previously, the number of cases reported on Monday may include cases that were missed over the weekend, the number is still alarming. And the number of new diagnosed cases in the United States continues to increase, not reaching the inflection point.

Changes in the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, admission to the ICU, and deaths in the United States and the United Kingdom. (Source: Data World)

But real-world data from the US and UK also show that despite the surge in the number of newly diagnosed cases, the increase in hospitalizations has been much lower, while the number of single-day deaths has changed little from before.

Against this backdrop, WBUR's On Point interviewed medical experts about whether the Omicron pandemic is still necessary to use the number of new infections as a major statistical indicator of outbreak surveillance in the context of a large population in the United States.

This topic is a topic of great interest to many people in the field of public health and health policy recently. What these doctors are discussing is also the possible direction of the epidemic in the future. Note that this microblog does not cover the situation in a country where the epidemic is better controlled.

Paul Checchia, a physician from Baylor College of Medicine, mentions three points that are worth pondering.

1

Abstain from anxiety.

This anxiety is not only personal anxiety, but also includes social anxiety such as overkill.

2

Systematically assess risk factors.

This is not only for individuals, but also for public health policy. For example, healthy people in their 30s are vaccinated with three doses of vaccines, and wearing masks in public will not be infected, even if the infection will not develop into severe disease, the risk of such people is very low, so excessive protection will only increase anxiety. For special groups such as the elderly or immunosuppressed patients, three doses of the vaccine still have good protection, and such groups need to do targeted special protection.

3

Pressure on the healthcare system.

Although the current medical system is still not ideal, it is very different from the beginning of 2020, and with the rich experience of medical institutions and medical staff, most admitted patients can now receive systematic treatment.

Richard Lessells, a doctor from KwaZulu-Natal University in South Africa, agrees with Paul Checchia. He believes that South Africa has hardly implemented strict control in this Omicron outbreak, and the social life of the country is still the same. South Africa, on the other hand, has now passed the peak of the outbreak and has not seen a major increase in case fatality, because in addition to previous infections and vaccinations, large numbers of people have built up immunity and medical treatment has been more effective.

Celine Gounder, an infectious disease physician from NYU who served as a COVID-19 medical adviser to the Biden administration, noted that covid-19 becoming endemic requires a situation where there is no seasonal index increase in the outbreak, but this has not yet been achieved.

The current COVID-19 winter outbreak is still more than 10 times more hospitalized than seasonal influenza and is therefore not yet at a point where the outbreak can be left unchecked. But on the other hand, with the immune barrier established by vaccination and previous infections, especially with the popularity of rapid detection kits, and Paxlovid solving the problem of production bottlenecks, which can be given to patients immediately after diagnosis, then COVID-19 can gradually "flu".

In countries with severe epidemics, laissez-faire and resolute clearance are either unfeasible or unrealistic.

End

Resources:

[1] Making sense of the COVID pandemic's omicron phase.https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/01/11/cases-biden-covid-pandemic-omicron-phase