The US government’s top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has joined a growing body of experts who say hospitalisation figures form a better guide to the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant than the traditional case-count of new infections.
Referring to the Omicron surge in the US as a “tsunami”, Fauci also cautioned the public not to be fooled by preliminary data suggesting the variant lacks the severity of earlier Covid-19 variants, such as Delta.
“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,” he told CNN’s State of the Union.
“It’s a very interesting, somewhat complicated issue … 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. We’re still going to get a lot of hospitalisations.”
On ABC’s This Week, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked if it was time to focus less on just the case count, which has soared close to 500,000 reported new daily infections.
A number of experts have questioned if such reports cause unnecessary worry, and suggest deaths and hospitalisation data should better inform mitigation efforts.
“The answer is, overall, yes,” Fauci said. “This is particularly relevant if you’re having an infection that is much, much more asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic, particularly in people who are vaccinated and boosted.
“The real bottom line that you want to be concerned about is, are we getting protected by the vaccines from severe disease leading to hospitalisation?”
The Biden administration has made improving vaccination rates a priority but concedes progress is slower than it would like. Fewer than 25% of US children are vaccinated, pediatric hospital admissions are surging and nationally only 62% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated with barely a third receiving a booster.
“I’m still very concerned about the tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated at all because even though many of them are going to get asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic, a fair number of them are going to get severe disease,” Fauci said.
Surging infection rates, Fauci told CNN, will likely cause disruption to everyday life, already evidenced in pressure on healthcare in several states and in other areas such as education and public transport. A number of universities and school districts will begin 2022 online and in New York City several subway lines have been suspended through staff shortages.
Fauci said those concerns contributed to the decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week to reduce the recommended isolation period for those who have tested positive but are asymptomatic from 10 days to five.
“You’re certainly gonna see stresses on the system, the system being people with any kind of jobs, particularly with critical jobs, to keep society functioning normally. We already know there are reports from fire departments, from police departments in different cities, that sometimes 30% of the people are ill.
“The CDC is trying to get a position where people without symptoms who are infected, that you can get them back to work a little bit earlier if they remain without symptoms.”
But he rejected criticism that the change was sparked by economic pressure rather than science.
“In the second half of a 10-day period, which would normally be a 10-day isolation period, the likelihood of transmissibility is considerably lower,” he said. “For that reason, the CDC made the judgement that it would be relatively low risk to get people out.
“You’re right [that] people are concerned about, ‘Why not test people at that time?’ I myself feel that that’s a reasonable thing to do. I believe that the CDC soon will be coming out with more clarification of that since it obviously has generated a number of questions about that five-day period.”
The new mayor of New York, Eric Adams, said he thought the city was doing “an amazing job” of reacting to the shifting challenges of the pandemic, including transportation issues and having one-fifth of police out sick.
“We are pivoting based on where the urgency is located. We’re not taking it one-size-fits-all, we’re thinking about it and making the right moves and decisions,” he told ABC.
“I was with my police commissioner. We have a 20% sick rate but now we have officers coming back after the five days.
“But we can’t live through variants. We spent $11tn on Covid and we don’t have another $11tn, so our lives can’t be based on what’s the new variant. No. We have to figure out, how do we adjust?
“I say to those who are not vaccinated, ‘Stop it. It’s time to get vaccinated. It’s time to have the booster shots. You’re endangering yourself and you’re endangering the public and your family as well.’”