Stories raising the alarm about the fast-spreading omicron variant aren't hard to find. For example, Britain estimates that 200,000 people are becoming infected with it each day at this point, notes the New York Times. And the same trend appears inevitable in the US. "No part of the country will be safe from omicron," is the view of disease ecologist Shweta Bansal of Georgetown University. But on the key question of how severe the new cases will be, Bloomberg reports on more optimistic numbers: In South Africa, where omicron was first detected, only 1.7% of COVID cases required hospitalization in the second week of the omicron phase. By contrast, 19% of cases required hospitalization in the same week of the delta phase.
"In terms of absolute numbers, we are still at a low level with just over 7,600 patients admitted," says Health Minister Joe Phaahla, per Insider. What's more, those who are being admitted don't require ventilators as much as patients in previous waves, reports the Wall Street Journal. Admissions to the ICU also are less frequent. Still, omicron appears to be resulting in far more positive tests overall—20,000 new cases per day versus 4,400 in the same weeks compared above. All in all, the findings appear to reinforce the current thinking that omicron is more contagious but milder than previous variants, though researchers caution that how the variant plays out in South Africa isn't necessarily how it will play out elsewhere. (More omicron variant stories.)
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