COVID-19: Fauci says hospitalisation figures better guide to Omicron than case count

As the Omicron cases are rising throughout the world, the United States Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci has joined a growing group of specialists who believe that hospitalisation data are a better indicator of the seriousness of the new 'highly mutated' Omicron strain than the standard case-count of new infections. Fauci described the Omicron spike in the nation as a "tsunami," and warned the citizens not to be deceived by preliminary research proving the variant is not as severe as other COVID-19 variants like Delta, the Guardian reported.  

“You have a virus that looks like it might be less severe, at least from data we’ve gathered from South Africa, the UK and even some from preliminary data from here in the US... so many people are getting infected that the net amount, the total amount of people that will require hospitalisation, might be up. We can’t be complacent in these reports,” Fauci said on CNN's State of the Union. He further noted that the nation might witness a lot of hospitalisations.   

Anthony Fauci talks about COVID-19 hospitalisations 

Furthermore, Fauci was questioned on ABC's This Week that whether this has been the time to focus less on the case tally, which has risen to around 500,000 new COVID cases every day. A number of specialists have even questioned whether such reports are overly alarmist, arguing that data on fatalities and hospitalizations should be used to better influence mitigation measures. To all the questions, Fauci said ‘yes’. 

Describing the situation, Fauci stated that this is especially important for those who have an illness that is asymptomatic or slightly symptomatic, especially in persons who have been vaccinated and boosted. Further, he highlighted the fact that the main concern and question people should ask is whether immunizations are protecting citizens from serious sickness which requires hospitalisation. 

In addition to this, Fauci is extremely worried about the tens of millions of individuals who are still not vaccinated. He believed that even though many of the unvaccinated individuals would become asymptomatic or slightly symptomatic, a significant proportion of them will have serious illnesses. 

COVID-19 undoubtedly disrupts daily life: Fauci

Increasing rates of infection, according to Fauci, would undoubtedly disrupt daily life, as indicated by the burden on healthcare in numerous states, as well as in other domains like education and public transportation. Numerous institutions and school systems will be online in 2022, while several subway lines in New York City have been stopped due to staff shortages.  

Anthony Fauci also added that citing these concerns, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has even reduced the suggested isolation duration for individuals who have been tested positive but are asymptomatic from 10 days to five days last week. Meanwhile, as per Worldometers, over 56,142,175 individuals have been affected by the disease in the nation since the outbreak, and more than 847,408 people have lost their lives due to Coronavirus. 

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