Omicron Spares U.S. ICUs So Far, Mirroring South Africa

U.S. hospitals are so far seeing significantly fewer severe outcomes from the omicron wave than they saw in past Covid-19 spikes, mirroring the experience of South Africa and the U.K. Even New York, the uber-dense site of one of the nation’s worst outbreaks, is seeing similar results.

The U.S. is reporting a weekly average of 485,363 cases, about twice the peak of last winter, and true prevalence is projected to be far higher. But U.S. hospitals have just 64% of the Covid patients in adult intensive-care beds as they did at last winter’s peak, and hospital deaths with Covid are around 52% of last winter’s worst period.