Page 23 - Delta Wave News Today

Where are you on all of this? >> we are having deju-vu heading into the holiday season. we are seeing cases rise and hospitalizations and deaths as well. half of the cases last december heading into the holidays. the arise in hospitalizations and deaths are not paralleling that yet. a third of those. the information coming out about omicron is encouraging with a more milder illness and less hospitalization rates the united states is still battling the delta variant. while the sun-belt and other ...

We have colder and drier air. because a lot of people are unvaccinated. that means tough decisions in codes across the united states. we are crisis standards of care. rationing of resources. we talked about it during the delta wave and we are going to be talking about in the weeks ahead. that is not going to be the case with the vaccinated. two things are going to be true. the vaccinated will largely be protected from omicron. they might get seeing breakthrough cases. those with not that. how do...

Me. >> if the unvaccinated have to go to hospitals, what will this do to our hospitals that are already stressed? >> its going to be problematic. there are 10,000 weekly deaths forecasted week after week into march. that coincides with flu season because of seasonality. a lot of people are still unvaccinated. for crisis standards of care, rationing of resources. we talked about it with the delta wave, well be talking about it in weeks ahead. thats not going to be the case for the unvaccinated. t...

Its really hard to do justice. the scale of the burnout and the exhaustion that americas health care workers are facing right now. even if the delta wave and the omicron wave had never happened, they would be in a bad place. huge numbers of them have quit their jobs, quit medicine entirely because of all the traumas the last two years. now you add a delta wave on top of that and omicron on the horizon, as one person said to me, theyre just grasping for resolve. and this is going to affect all of...

The moment to be prepared, to get ibuprofen, chicken soup, pedialyte, and a pulse ox to monitor yourself at home. >> would you be stockpiling test kits at home? >> i am stockpiling test kits. ive got about 12 sitting in my kitchen cabinet for get-togethers with my parents. my daughter is turning 13 and will have a small get-together, every kid will test before they enter the house. now is a time to go out and buy those rapid antigen tests. >> omicron is spreading super fast. do you expect that t...

Is it displacing it? too early to say. in south africa they had already been through their delta wave, so it became dominant but didnt push out delta. we dont know yet what will happen in the u.s. >> last year we sort of escaped a tough flu season. so we have flu, delta, and we dont know if omicron is going to cause hospitalizations. but you were talking about the health care worker issue. do you expect emergency rooms basically not to be available if you have non-covid-related, non-life-threate...

And the cdc is projecting that virus deaths will increase over the next four weeks. however, the number of fully vaccinated americans surpassed 200 million earlier this month, just over 60% of the population. in the past week, the doses being administered jumped 35% from the week before. but there are still millions who have not received a single dose, and many insist they are not going to. >> jacqueline howard with the latest on that we are seeing. >> john, health officials say theyre concerned...

Is that where were headed? >> you know, don, our health care systems are already overwhelmed. my own hospital system today delayed or canceled almost all elective surgeries requiring an overnight stay and many of the day surgeries as well are being canceled. those are things like gallbladders, joint surgeries, things people have been waiting for for months. we are in the midst of a delta wave here in rhode island right now, not yet an omicron wave. so absolutely things are going to get worse bef...

Is on the wall, you see covid hospitalizations up 43% just from a month ago, according to the hhs, an alarming one in six hospitals already reporting critical staffing shortages, even if omicron cases cause less severe illness, i mean, could it still end up overwhelming our health care systems, is that where were headed? >> you know, don, our health care systems are already overwhelmed. my own hospital system today delayed or cancelled almost all l elective surgeries requiring an overnight stay ...

The pandemic?earlier i spokeh wit melissa nolan, assistant professor of epidemiology at the university of south carolina. wonderful to have you on the program. i imagine, many in the audience are wondering the same thing as i am, weve been through the delta wave, that we all asking ourselves. when we think about delta in comparison where we were at that point, we had a significantly larger on vaccinated population for the suit omicron is going to take a whole we dont think its good to be at the ...