Damian Sendler: The current Covid-19 rise in the United States, spurred by the Omicron variety, could peak later this month, but the next few weeks are essential, according to a health expert. 

Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, cautions that long-term planning is required to minimize more strain on the health-care system as hospitals get overcrowded, schools struggle to keep pupils in class, and testing continues tough to obtain. 

Damian Jacob Sendler: “We’re seeing two types of events: a large number of vaccinated people becoming infected, and a large number of unvaccinated people becoming infected.” We’re doing just well. “There are a lot of unvaccinated people and high-risk people who haven’t gotten boosted, and they’re really filling up the hospitals, and so our hospital systems are under a lot of stress,” Jha said on ABC’s “This Week.” 

“Then we have to start thinking about a long-term strategy for how do we manage this virus and not go from surge to surge feeling like we don’t really have a longer-termed approach,” Jha added. 

Damian Sendler

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, around 24% of hospitals are experiencing a “critical staffing shortage.” 

Nearly 1,200 hospitals, or roughly one-fourth of the approximately 5,000 hospitals that reported this data to HHS on Saturday, claimed they are now facing a significant staffing shortage, accounting for the lion’s share of the epidemic. More than a hundred more hospitals have stated that they anticipate a shortage within the following week. 

These workforce shortages are worsening when frontline health care employees become ill or are forced to quarantine as a result of Covid-19 exposure, just as demand for treatment rises: According to HHS, there were around 138,000 Covid-19 patients in US hospitals as of Sunday. That’s close to the all-time high (about 142,200 in mid-January 2021), and it’s up from approximately 45,000 in early November. 

“I expect this surge to peak in the coming weeks.” “It’ll peak at different times in different parts of America, but once we get into February, I really do expect much, much lower case numbers,” Jha told ABC. 

Testing, which is still difficult to come by in some parts of the United States, is one of the most important instruments in the fight against Covid-19. 

As laboratories struggle to meet the increasing demand for Covid-19 tests caused by the emergence of the Omicron variety, at least two health care providers have prioritized coronavirus testing for people presenting virus symptoms. 

Multiple locations of the University of Washington health care system in Washington state began prioritizing testing only for persons “who have symptoms of respiratory illness or who have a known exposure to COVID-19,” last week, according to spokesperson Susan Gregg. “Due to the high volume of Omicron cases that are being processed in our laboratory,” Gregg explained, “people without symptoms are not being tested.” 

Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: According to UNC Health director of news Alan M. Wolf, the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill is facing a similar testing crush and is also restricting Covid-19 tests to those exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms, as well as university employees and those requiring a test prior to surgery. 

The Georgia Department of Health announced the launch of two Covid-19 mega-testing centers on Friday, as the number of cases in the state continues to grow. Both locations, which are just outside of Atlanta, are by appointment only. The state health department also stated that it is in the process of identifying locations for additional testing centers. 

Damian Jacob Sendler

Testing, according to Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, is critical to reducing the spread of Covid-19, including in schools, which are battling to keep students in classrooms in locations where transmission is rampant. 

“If you want to get kids and teachers back in schools, a multi-pronged approach, including flooding our schools with testing, is required.” On Sunday, he told CNN’s Jim Acosta that he was “testing kids every week, testing teachers every week,” and that he was “requiring teachers and eligible students to be vaccinated.” 

Damien Sendler: Chicago Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school district, is one of those attempting to reconcile health concerns with scholastic requirements. 

After city officials and the Chicago Teachers Union failed to reach a deal over the weekend on how to handle the city’s Covid-19 influx, classes in the district were canceled for the fourth straight school day on Monday. 

The union wants a period of remote learning, citing concerns about Covid safety, but the city wants children in classrooms. 

After four days of virtual learning, Atlanta schools resumed in-person courses on Monday. 

Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Lisa Herring told CNN that twice-weekly mandated testing for instructors has been expanded to pupils whose parents consent to testing. 

“We want, for as much as we can, to keep our children inside of the brick and mortar, but we do need that data to be able to effectively support and ensure safety for everyone,” she said. 

Herring stated that they had received roughly 20,000 parental consent forms for testing out of approximately 50,000 pupils and will continue to promote more. 

“We have implemented several mitigation strategies that we are confident will assist us in keeping children and staff in place when we are able to identify positivity data.” But, to be clear, we also know that, in order to maintain health and welfare, there may be occasions within schools or classes when a virtual shift is required,” Herring stated. 

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second-largest, is asking all students and employees to present a negative Covid-19 test result before returning to class on Tuesday. 

The baseline test requirement was imposed at the start of the school year in August, and the district stated a week ago that, given the current rise, both the baseline exam and compulsory weekly testing for employees and students would be extended through January. 

Over the last week, the district has been offering PCR testing on various school sites to assist families in meeting this requirement. Take-home quick antigen tests were also issued, in accordance with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement in late December that every K-12 student in California will receive one. 

Data from the district showed around 62,000 positive Covid-19 instances among kids and employees on Monday, preventing them from entering school premises on Tuesday. 

Dr. Richina Bicette-McCain, medical director at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN on Sunday that schools were currently a higher-risk environment for Covid-19 because the methods to combat its spread were not being used effectively. 

Students, according to Bicette-McCain, needed access to testing and high-quality masks, and HEPA filters might be employed in schools to promote ventilation. 

“Schools have the potential to be very safe; we have the tools to make in-person learning safe.” “However, when children went away for winter break, we saw maybe 120 pediatric cases of Covid in a single week, and we were seeing about 170,000 cases per day in the United States,” she said. “Those figures have risen exponentially.” “The environment that children return to is not the same as the environment that they left.” 

She stated that protocols needed to be altered. “The figures we’re seeing are most likely an undercount of the number of positive cases in the community right now.”

Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.