Friday’s announced number of 4693 new cases of Covid-19 continues its sharp and trend downwards from a peak of 16,130 on January 21st. The 7-Day average of 5502 net new Omicron cases peaked at 12,226 on January 26. The last time the 7-Day Average was this low was on January 5. The Commonwealth’s 20.1% Test Positivity Rate of electronically reported cases on Friday is following the same trajectory as cases. Both these metrics remain at higher levels than at any point during the four months of the Delta variant surge last summer and fall. Friday’s case count is likely underreported because the number of tests reported that day and the Friday before were relatively low but the trend is undeniably strongly downwards. How much lower and at how fast remains to be seen.
Reported Hospital and ICU censuses seem also finally to be decreasing but I have no feel for what it is like to be either a patient or a healthcare employee in our hospitals. Not all are in the same shape. Deaths may be ticking up but based on past ability to track Covid-19 deaths in a timely manner, it will likely require several months for an accurate picture to emerge. I will try to tackle the matter of hospitalization with or for Coronavirus at some future time. It is not as simple as some make it out to be.
I do not have much more to add at this point. The world has been turned upside-down by this epidemic in many ways. Our ability to recover as a healthy civil society will require a different mindset than we exhibit now. I believe it is safe to say that as was the case following the great plagues of the past, little will remain the same– nor should it!
Peter Hasselbacher, MD
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, UofL
13 February 2022