NYC Health Commissioner: Omicron Variant Hospitalizations Far Lower Than Previous Waves

With at least 22,478 positive COVID-19 cases confirmed on Sunday in New York state, New York City's health director said that cases are rising quickly but hospitalizations are not.

"Right now, there are about a thousand people hospitalized with COVID-19 across New York City. That's about a quarter of where we were at the peak of last winter's wave and less than a tenth of where we were in the spring of 2020," health commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said on Monday, blaming the rise in infections on the "Omicron wave."

Chokshi echoed a narrative that has been repeated by federal health officials that unvaccinated people are at risk of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms due to the Omicron variant.

The South African ministry of health officials last week said that the rate of hospitalization from Omicron is about one-tenth of Delta's hospitalization rate during its initial wave earlier this year.

Only around 1.7 percent of identified COVID-19 cases led to hospitalization in the past two weeks, said Health Minister Joe Phaahla in a news conference.

Waasila Jassat, a researcher with South Africa's National Institute For Communicable Diseases, told Bloomberg that hospitalized patients show less severe symptoms than patients who were hospitalized with the Delta variant.

Federal U.S. health officials, including President Joe Biden, have warned that unvaccinated people are at risk of dying during a predicted winter surge.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/nyc-health-commissioner-omicron-variant-hospitalizations-far-lower-than-previous-waves_4167535.html