Is there a light at the end of the omicron tunnel? “I think we’re way more optimistic than we were probably two or three weeks ago,” said Dr. Dan Varga of Hackensack Meridian Health. Health care officials say they expect to see COVID-19 hospitalizations driven by the omicron surge to level off this week.
Cathleen Bennett, president and CEO of the New Jersey Hospital Association, expects the peak in hospitalizations won’t hit 8,000, as projected by the state health department, but rather to hover in the high 6,000s. That said, hundreds are still in ICUs and on ventilators. And while COVID-19 caseloads are falling, the death toll, sadly, remains high.
