Mark Levine, the health commissioner there, said hospitalizations and the numbers of patients in intensive care units are both up slightly, although deaths have not risen.ĭata from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that new hospital admissions of patients with confirmed COVID-19 were up slightly in New England and the New York region. Vermont also has relatively high levels of vaccination and fewer patients in the hospital than during the height of the first omicron wave. State statistics show 99% of Rhode Island adults are at least partially vaccinated and 48% have gotten the booster dose that scientists say is key in protecting against severe illness with omicron. About 55 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, compared with more than 600 at one point in the pandemic. Joseph Wendelken, spokesperson for the Rhode Island Department of Health, said the metric they are most focused on right now is hospitalizations, which remain relatively low. In New Hampshire, the increase in cases comes two weeks after the closure of all 11 state-managed vaccination sites, and the governor is being pressured by some advocates to reverse course. Some states, such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire, saw the average of daily new cases rise by more than 100% in two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins data. In Washington, D.C., which also ranks in the top 10 for rates of new cases, Howard University announced it was moving most undergraduate classes online for the rest of the semester because of “a significant increase in COVID-19 positivity” in the district and on campus. As of Thursday, the highest rates of new COVID cases per capita over the past 14 days were in Vermont, Rhode Island, Alaska, New York and Massachusetts. The Northeast has been hit hardest so far - with more than 90% of new infections caused by BA.2 last week compared with 86% nationally. “We could have a substantial surge here,” he said.īoth experts said BA.2 will move through the country gradually. could wind up looking like Europe, where the BA.2 surge was “substantial" in some places that had comparable levels of immunity.
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from vaccination or past infection compared with early winter.īut Ray said the U.S. Keeping the surge somewhat in check, experts said, is a higher level of immunity in the U.S. as it did in Israel, where it created a “bump" in the chart measuring cases, he said. BA.2 may well have the same effect in the U.S. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the numbers will likely keep growing until the surge reaches about a quarter the height of the last “monstrous” one.