Page 2 - Omicron First News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Skyrocketing. pediatric cases tripling in the last two weeks to nearly a million. and hospitals are waging an all-out battle that could last weeks. in oklahoma city, doctors describe a warzone with zero icu beds and more than 100 patients waiting. >> our emergency departments are overflowing. we have to care for patients in hallways, sometimes closets. >> reporter: with 1,000 workers in quarantine, doctors warn they are running out of staff and critical supplies like syringes and saline. still in the northeast, where some cities were hit with omicron first, signs of a light at the end of the t...

Of hospitalization and death dropping by more than half for the new strain in fact, one study found patients infected with omicron may have increased protection against more severe variants like delta. >> we'll have more variants i'm convinced we'll have more variants, but each of them will impact us less and less. >> reporter: in london, hard hit by the variant, the peak may have already passed in south africa, where omicron first spread wildly in november, the government said thursday the worst was over with no major spike in deaths. could we be seeing the end to the most dangerous part of t...

Potentially easing those very tough travel restrictions that were brought into place when omicron first emerged. right now foreigners are banned from entering israel unless they have special permission, and israel has a very long and growing list of countries that are labeled red, which means israeli citizens cannot travel to or from there. the u.s. is on that list as is most of western europe. we've kind of reached that ironic phase in the cases in israel where it's getting high enough, there is enough omicron domestically where they feel there is not much point keeping those travel restricti...

Omicron is, is still in flux. >> reporter: there is some preliminary data that suggests it could be mild. first, early lab studies have found omicron may not attack the lungs like other variants. >> omicron replicates, multiplies in the upper airway and less well in the lung >> reporter: second, in south africa where omicron first took off, the headlines this weekend are stoking optimism hospitalizations are down 91% >> we can say one thing, it's not more severe what they have seen in south africa is they have had lower rates of hospitalization almost 1/3 less hospitalization than with the del...

Holidays? >> well, not in a good place. in terms of what we could expect to happen in the next two or three weeks. and this is very much what was also seen in south africa where omicron first emerged. and seeing right now in the united kingdom where something like 44% of cases in london are now omicron and again doubling about every two or three days. so the bad news is this is a very contagious virus, it spreads more rapidly than delta or the original virus from wuhan. it is just really good at getting from one person to the next. the somewhat more encouraging news is it seems not to be causi...