Fact Check Team: Is the omicron peak on the way?

WASHINGTON (TND) — As omicron rages on, thousands of people across the country are in the hospital trying to recover from the disease.

A major factor in this is the continued risk of overwhelming the country’s medical system.

Experts are saying that the high cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations will decrease.

The National Desk’s Fact Check Team is digging in on the data indicating that omicron is peaking and when things may improve.

New research says the nation will peak in the coming weeks with some estimates as early as Jan. 18 and the acting head of the Food and Drug Administration says most people will get COVID-19 and there needs to be a focus on ensuring critical services can continue without disruptions.

Many are pointing to big cities and states where cases are leveling out as an indication things are getting better. Places like New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Georgia, Kansas and Mississippi are seeing improvements.

Data shows that New York peaked a few days ago with a seven-day average of 40,000 cases. Cases have gone down since then with the current average now 37,000.

The latest seven-day average for the U.S. is above 800,000 cases. The latest Johns Hopkins COVID-19 briefing reported 786,468 new cases just Friday.

Worldwide, things are around 2.8 million cases.

Cases in South Africa peaked on Dec. 15, when their seven-day average was over 22,000 cases. The most current numbers show an average of about 6,000.

In the United Kingdom, cases also seem to have peaked. Earlier this month, their daily average was more than 192,000 cases. The average now is 136,000.

After the peak, medical experts say the pandemic could end this year, and then COVID will probably be more seasonal like the flu.

However, scientists say the disease could continue to evolve.

According to the World Health Organization, there are just five variants of concern with omicron being the most recent one.

Experts say there will continue to be new COVID-19 variants. As long as the disease spreads through the population, mutations will occur, and the delta and omicron variant families will evolve.

Dr. Stuart Ray of Johns Hopkins Medicine says new variants are detected every week but most fizzle out pretty quickly. He says when a change in the infection pattern first pops up, it can be very hard to tell what’s driving it.

Dr. Andrew Freedman of the Cardiff University Medical School says until the whole world is vaccinated, there’s a risk that more dangerous variants could pop up. He admits that viruses tend to become milder over time, but this isn’t always the case.

More than 208 million people are fully vaccinated in the U.S. with 79 million receiving a booster. Among the world’s population, 50% have been vaccinated and 34.5 million COVID-19 shots are administered globally each day.

Experts say that there is no evidence for the need for variant-specific vaccines because COVID is still much less genetically diverse than the flu.

According to the WHO, the vaccine supply is enough to vaccinate the entire global adult population and to give boosters to high-risk populations, by the first quarter of 2022. They also say the global priority is to get countries to 70% of their populations vaccinated by around June.

Dr. Robert Bollinger of Johns Hopkins Medicine says people don’t need to overreact when it comes to the different variants but it is important to keep an eye on changes for the best course of action and to continue vaccinating people.