Although daily hospital admissions are only slightly lower than Delta, the average hospital stay is much shorter at 2.8 days, down from 8.5 days for Delta (MRC). The result is much lower total admissions.
A peak between 20-30 December will be well below Delta levels.
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As we look at more severe outcomes, the gap widens even further.
Omicron patients in ICU is running at levels 6x lower than Delta.
A peak between 20 - 30 December will be 3 - 5 x lower than Delta.
#Omicron will not overload hospitals, even with light restrictions.
Even if daily cases peak at levels 3x higher than Delta, ventilated beds will be 6x lower.
data source: NICD
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Gauteng will peak within 2 weeks i.e. before 20 December, with peak case levels 1.5 to 3 x higher than Delta.
In these charts I moved Delta by 176 days to compare with Omicron.
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Although daily hospital admissions are only slightly lower than Delta, the average hospital stay is now much lower at 2.8 days, down from 8.5 days for Delta (MRC). The result is much lower total admissions.
A peak between 20-30 December will be well below Delta levels.
SARS-CoV-2 has been an incidental finding in most patients that were admitted.
Of 42 patients in the ward on 2 December 2021 reveals that 29 (70%) are not oxygen dependent. This is a picture that has not been seen in previous waves.
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There are only 4 patients in high care. The numbers of patients in high care were noticeably higher in previous waves.
There were only 2 patients in the COVID ICU in the last 14 days, neither of whom had a primary diagnosis of COVID pneumonia.
Patients ending up on ventilators could be 3 - 6x lower than Delta.
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Hospital admissions follow a more similar trajectory to Delta, and if the peak is in 2 weeks, the peak will be similar to Delta.
Hospitalisations lag cases by 5 days based on growth rate indicators.
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There are currently 118 patients in ICU, increasing at ~10 per day. If the peak is in 2-3 weeks, the ICU peak will be at 800-1200, which is 20-40% below the Delta peak.
This estimate assumes ICU beds lag hospital beds by 5 days.
Test positivity rates have only started to increase in the densely populated areas of Johannesburg. These areas are likely to have higher community immunity levels.
For 90% of the country, test positivity rates remain below 2.5%.