While COVID-19’s omicron variant pushes Florida to pandemic daily records in cases reported and has drive-thru testing lines snaking through parks and pharmacy parking lots, hospitalizations haven’t risen at the same rate — yet.
Sunday’s report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said there were 2,302 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in Florida. That’s 39 more people hospitalized than in Saturday’s report and from 245 hospitals, as opposed to the 246 hospitals in Saturday’s report.
COVID-19 patients occupy 4.27% of patient beds in those reporting hospitals, compared to 4.18% in the previous day’s reporting hospitals. Of the people hospitalized in Florida, 333 were in intensive care unit beds, a decrease of nine. That represents about 5.41% of the state’s ICU hospital beds, compared to 5.55% the previous day.
This is nowhere near the summer sun high hospitalization rates from July to September when the delta variant was in full effect. At hospitalization’s height, in August, over 15,000 patients were being reported daily by HHS and COVID-19 patients were accounting for over 25% of hospital patients.
Dr. Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology with the USF College of Public Health, told the Herald, “The Imperial College London recently released a report that said, on average, there is a decreased risk of hospitalization for people infected with omicron as compared to delta, but that the much higher risk of infection with omicron (mainly due to its ease of transmission and immunity avoidance capabilities) could result in a significant increase in people with severe enough disease to be hospitalized.”
In a Twitter thread, Salemi supported the hypothesis of Emory University assistant biostatistics professor Dr. Natalie Dean that the hospitalization numbers haven’t spiked yet for two main reasons: a higher percentage of the current cases involve younger people, at less risk of hospitalization; and more cases are re-infections and breakthrough infections of the vaccinated, either of which is less likely to turn into severe illness.
“Also, not enough time has passed,” Salemi said.
Salemi’s chart notes that on Dec. 1, Florida was averaging 160 new adult COVID-19 patients per day and six pediatric patients per day and, on Dec. 25, those numbers were up to 429 and 21, respectively.
———
