BREAKING: ‘Enormous spread of Omicron’ could cause 140 MILLION new infections from January 1 to March 1 – and 90% of those infected will never show symptoms
- Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said Omicron could cause about 140 million new COVID infections from January to March
- But the majority will show no symptoms and have fewer hospitalizations and deaths compared to previous surges
As COVID cases soar across the U.S., health experts have predicted things will get worse in 2022 as the Omicron variant is expected to cause 140 million new infections from January to March, the majority of which will be asymptomatic cases.
Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington updated their COVID-19 model and expect the virus to hit the US hard come January, peaking at 2.8 million new cases a day by January 28.
‘We are expecting an enormous surge in infections … so, an enormous spread of Omicron,’ IHME director Dr. Chris Murray said told USA Today.
‘Total infections in the U.S. we forecast are going from about 40 percent of the U.S. having been infected so far, to having in the next two to three months, 60 percent of the U.S. getting infected with Omicron.’
Despite the surge, experts believe the new infections will ultimately lead to fewer deaths and hospitalizations than the deadly Delta variant, as Omicron is believed to be a more infectious but less severe variant.
The number of daily COVID cases is expected to more than double come January, with the Omicron variant predicted to cause about 140 new cases come March 2022
The projections showed deaths increasing from the current 1,500 a day throughout January before peaking at around 2,800 deaths a day in mid February.
It’s significantly less than the more than 3,000 daily deaths recorded in January 2021.
Because the majority of those infected won’t feel sick or get tested, the researchers warned that the total infections will be underreported, predicting that only about 400,000 new cases will be reported every day as opposed to the more than a million.
Murray said that while the forecast may be pessimistic, it is within the area of possibility based on the current information scientists have on the Omicron variant.
The good news, however, is that Omicron’s hospitalization rate is about 90 to 96 percent lower than Delta, which rampaged through much of the US in August.
‘In the past, we roughly thought that COVID was 10 times worse than flu and now we have a variant that is probably at least 10 times less severe,’ Murray said. ‘So, omicron will probably … be less severe than flu but much more transmissible.’
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