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COVID-19 watch Tracking Hardship - January 7, 2022 |
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The omnipotent omicron edition. Omicron is exploding and testing is falling woefully short. The U.S. is now averaging 610,989 cases a day – a record during the pandemic – and a 227 percent increase from two weeks ago. Hospitalizations in some areas are rising sharply. When one digs deeply into the omicron numbers, there is both bad and good news to be mined. The bad news is the sheer, staggering numbers themselves. Industries throughout the country are facing disruption. Millions of Americans are in self-imposed quarantine – either they’re sick or they are just now recovering. Some subway service in New York City has ground to a halt, as have some bus routes in Washington, D.C. – two cities particularly hit hard. JetBlue has cancelled many of its flights for the rest of January. More than 300,000 students in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest school district, are not in class today as the schools are shuttered. Maryland's Governor has declared a 30-day state of emergency; in California, an indoor mask mandate has been extended all the way to February 15. Hospitalizations in Miami-Dade County are up 550 percent in just two weeks.
Yet there is good news. First, experts predict omicron will peak quickly – some time in the next few weeks. Some experts think it already may be peaking in some parts of the country, such as the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. Second, we know that although omicron is incredibly infectious – more so than all of its predecessors – it is not as deadly as delta, which ravaged the country last summer, nor as deadly as delta’s predecessors. Two sets of facts bear this out: On January 22, 2021, there were 251,232 daily average cases and 137,438 hospitalizations nationwide. On January 5, 2022, there were 585,535 daily average cases and 107,094 hospitalizations nationwide. So – a year ago, 1.8 cases to hospitalizations. On Wednesday of this week: 5.5 cases to hospitalizations.
Clearly, people contracting omicron are much less likely to be hospitalized, or intubated, or even die. This is due in part to omicron’s molecular composition, which makes it more difficult to invade people’s lungs, and due in part to the fact that most Americans are now vaccinated. Vaccines work.
Omicron’s escalation – and the fact that many of the more than 58 million Americans who have been stricken with COVID-19 in some form in the past two years will suffer from “long COVID,” perhaps for years to come – serve as a stark reminder that we need to make even more investments in our health care system. The Build Back Better Act does this in a way that will help the most serious COVID-19 patients. It includes provisions to close the Medicaid coverage gap by providing a pathway to coverage for more than two million people (disproportionately people of color) in the 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It would mean that nine million people would see reduced health insurance premiums under the ACA. And – important for some of the millions of Americans suffering from “long COVID” – it provides $150 billion for Medicaid home- and community-based services.
You can call your Senators today and tell them we need Build Back Better: 1-888-738-3058 (thanks to NETWORK for the use of the number). |
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58,473,822 |
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The number of COVID-19 cases that have been officially recorded in the U.S. during the entire pandemic, as of Thursday, January 6. That’s more than any other country. Tweet this.
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More than 4,000 |
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The number of children hospitalized from COVID-19 in the U.S. as of Wednesday, January 5. That’s the highest number since the start of the pandemic. On Christmas Day, fewer than 2,000 children were hospitalized. Tweet this. |
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8-9 percentage points |
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Without the continued Child Tax Credit expansion, which Congress has so far failed to approve, poverty rates among Black, Latinx, and AIAN children will be an estimated 8 to 9 percentage points higher than they would be if the expansion continues – 22% rather than 13% for Black children, 21% rather than 12% for Latinx children, and 18% rather than 10% for AIAN children. Poverty among White and Asian children would also rise, but by less. Tweet this. |
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70%/78%/86% |
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Without the CTC expansion, progress in narrowing differences in child poverty rates would also be reversed. Without the expansion, the difference in child poverty rates between Latinx and White children would grow by 70%, between Black and White children by 78%, and between AIAN and White children by 86%. Tweet this. |
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5 million |
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The number of Americans currently in quarantine, according to Capital Economics, a private firm. This is causing ripple effects across entire industries, from airlines to mass transit to hospitals/health care, and throughout the entire hospitality industry. Tweet this.
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