The seven-day average for newly reported COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. reached 2,258 a day on Tuesday, an eleven month high and an indication that the deadliest days of the omicron wave have produced more fatalities than the deadliest days of the delta wave.
The Wall Street Journal explains:
While there is a large body of evidence suggesting that Omicron is less likely to kill the people it infects, it spreads much more quickly and therefore infects many more people than earlier variants, epidemiologists say. Case counts in the U.S. have dwarfed previous records.
“Milder does not mean mild and we cannot look past the strain on our health systems and substantial number of deaths,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a Wednesday press conference. “I know many people are tired, but many of our hospitals are still struggling beyond capacity.”
Dr Mark Cameron, an associate professor in the department of population and quantitative health sciences at Case Western University, told The BBC that the unvaccinated have been disproportionately impacted by the omicron wave, which began in the U.S. last month.
“The common thread throughout the omicron wave is that it is largely impacting the unvaccinated, in terms of severity of illness, hospitalization rates and indeed, risk of dying from the infection. It’s crystal clear,” Cameron said.
The BBC adds:
In the short term, experts believe that the daily death toll is likely to continue to rise. Dr Cameron warned that a peak in mortality lags behind peaks in cases by up to a month, suggesting that deaths may continue to rise for at least the next several weeks.
“We’re not there in the US yet,” he said. “Omicron has strength in numbers working against us in terms of reducing our overall per capita death rate.”
Since the pandemic began in early March 2020, more than 866,000 Americans and US residents have died from Covid-19.
