Omicron wave threatens every state with a ‘viral hurricane’, says top disease expert

‘This wave threatens to overtake the country at once’

The surging wave of infections from Omicron threatens to hit all of the United Sates at the same time, according to a leading expert in infectious diseases, delivering each of the 50 states with its own “viral hurricane” to deal with.

Previous waves and spikes of the coronavirus, including the often-deadly or dangerous Delta strain, have frequently had regional or localised impacts, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. This has allowed the dispersal of limited but critical supplies to those places that need it.

However, because of the speed and ease with which Omicron variant is spreading, a new wave will hit everywhere at once, threatening to overwhelm not only hospitals, but also industries such as the airline industry, he predicted.

“With this one, all 50 states are in the soup at the same time,” he told the New York Times. “It’s like every state is being hit by a viral hurricane.”

Dr Osterholm, had previously warned that healthcare infrastructures could be overwhelmed over the coming two months.

“Even though more people who get it have milder illness, so many more people, overall, will get it that I think we are going to see a real challenge in our health care systems over the course of the next three to eight weeks,” he told CNN earlier this month.

In his latest comments, Mr Osterholm pointed out that during previous surges in the disease, their regional nature had allowed states to “reallocate resources like monoclonal antibodies”.

He added: “This wave threatens to overtake the country at once.”

Dr Osterholm predicted that in the next three to five weeks, a substantial share of health care workers will get infected and be unable to work, straining an overburdened system. “We’re already stretched so thin,” he said.

Scientists said those staffing shortages – in hospitals and nursing homes, but also in restaurants, retail stores and airline workforces – had increased the urgency of re-evaluating isolation periods. And at-home rapid tests had given people the ability to get a rough, if imperfect, measure of whether they were contagious.


Experts have said they believe such concerns are partly behind the decision announced by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Monday to recommend reducing the isolation time for Americans with asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 to five days from the previous figure of 10 days.

The CDC also said asymptomatic people after isolation should follow five days of wearing a mask when around others.

“CDC's updated recommendations for isolation and quarantine balance what we know about the spread of the virus and the protection provided by vaccination and booster doses,“ CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement.

Omicron accounts for 73 per cent of US coronavirus infections, the CDC said last week.

Breakthrough infections are rising among the fully vaccinated population, including those who have had a third booster shot. However, Omicron appears to be causing milder symptoms in those people, some of whom have no symptoms at all.

On Monday, Joe Biden vowed to do more to speed up production of testing camps, invoking the Defence Spending Act to boost at-home test manufacturing and making it easier to use the internet to find a nearby testing location.

“Seeing how tough it was for some folks to get a test this weekend shows that we have more work to do,” Mr Biden said, as he joined a call with his administration’s Covid response team with state governors. “It's clearly not enough.”

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards was on the call with Mr Biden.

On Sunday he said that the number of people being taken to hospital in his state had doubled one week as his health department urged caution ahead of New Year's Day.

Additional reporting by Reuters