Covid-19: can the hospital stand up to the Omicron variant?

The Christmas weekend is tense in the emergency room of the Timone hospital in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). In addition to the usual patients, more and more Covid patients are added. “With the winter context and the Delta and Omicron waves, we say to ourselves that we will soon have a big space problem”, indicates the emergency physician Nicolas Bonté. As of Sunday, December 26, 3,299 Covid patients are in critical care, a figure lower than in the first three waves. But how will this figure evolve? Omicron is more contagious and less dangerous, but it is not known to what extent. A team in Montpellier studied several scenarios. A possible peak could be reached in early February 2022, with 4,000 to 5,000 patients in critical care.

The concern around the Omicron variant is great: “Its circulation will be so lively, that there is a risk of reduction of hospital staff because of it”, Explain Mircea Sofonea, member of the modeling team. At the end of December, the health authorities will have their eyes riveted on the United Kingdom in particular, to see how the figures for hospitalizations and intensive care are evolving.