COVID-19 Deaths Reach 4,500 as San Diego County Urges Testing Only When Necessary

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/covid-19-deaths-reach-4500-as-san-diego-county-urges-testing-only-when-necessary/2834043/

Due to a massive influx in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, San Diego County public health officials, Friday urged residents to not only get all vaccinations and the booster but to only seek testing for the illness if necessary.

According to county data, in the past month, confirmed COVID-19 cases jumped from around 4,700 per week to more than 45,000 cases reported in the seven days between Dec. 29, 2021, through Tuesday. That is nearly a tenfold increase in just 30 days.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have also more than doubled in the past 30 days, from 303 to 837, putting a strain on local hospitals that are contending with hundreds of employees unable to work after contracting the virus.

"We're now seeing the highest local case counts of the pandemic. COVID-19 is everywhere," said Dr. Wilma J. Wooten, county public health officer. "The best way to slow the spread of COVID-19 is to have as much immunity as possible and to take other precautions that we know work."

The county Health and Human Services Agency reported 5,922 new infections and five deaths on Friday, increasing the cumulative totals to 477,211 cases and 4,500 deaths.

Hospitalizations increased to 837 from 774, according to the latest state figures, up from 510 last Friday.

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Florida Faces Sharp Rise of COVID-19 Hospitalizations; Deaths Low

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/florida-faces-sharp-rise-of-covid-19-hospitalizations-deaths-low/2656950/

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida have increased by more than 365% in the last two weeks, and more than 90% in one week, according to the latest data from the state.

Hospitalizations rose from about 5,000 COVID patients to about 8,500 over the past week, according to federal government data. Cases in the state have continued to rise, reaching another record of 76,887 daily cases on Friday, CDC data shows.

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Hospitals Are in Serious Trouble
Omicron is inundating a health-care system that was already buckling under the cumulative toll of every previous surge.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/omicron-mild-hospital-strain-health-care-workers/621193/

Omicron is so contagious that it is still flooding hospitals with sick people. And America’s continued inability to control the coronavirus has deflated its health-care system, which can no longer offer the same number of patients the same level of care. Health-care workers have quit their jobs in droves; of those who have stayed, many now can’t work, because they have Omicron breakthrough infections. “In the last two years, I’ve never known as many colleagues who have COVID as I do now,” Amanda Bettencourt, the president-elect of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, told me. “The staffing crisis is the worst it has been through the pandemic.” This is why any comparisons between past and present hospitalization numbers are misleading: January 2021’s numbers would crush January 2022’s system because the workforce has been so diminished. Some institutions are now being overwhelmed by a fraction of their earlier patient loads. “I hope no one you know or love gets COVID or needs an emergency room right now, because there’s no room,” Janelle Thomas, an ICU nurse in Maryland, told me.

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Also Supreme Court is going to strip Biden's authority very soon so there will be no federal intervention possible to counteract governors's malicious plans.