JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As Americans get ready for the holidays, COVID-19 cases are surging in parts of the United States.
Florida’s COVID-19 caseload more than doubled in the latest weekly report.
It’s still the same message from health officials: If you do plan on getting together, make sure everyone is vaccinated, if not boosted, and that you are practicing good hand hygiene like washing your hands.
But between delta and omicron, it’s going to be a long winter with COVID-19. Experts are warning of omicron’s speed of spread.
“It’s going to take over,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said omicron is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week.
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As of Monday, the COVID-19 units in Northeast Florida hospitals remained stable. Baptist Health’s five hospitals had a total of 23 people are in the COVID-19 unit. At the three St. Vincent’s hospitals, there were six people hospitalized with COVID-19. And at UF Health Jacksonville’s two hospitals, there were 14 COVID-19 patients.
Chad Neilsen, UF Health Jacksonville director of infection prevention, told News4JAX that if there’s another surge, hospitals will be in trouble.
“We’re running very high numbers of patients sick with other reasons: post stroke, cancer. Our hospitals are full with our traditional hospitalized patients. If we start seeing a run on COVID admissions, it’s going to overwhelm all of the hospitals in the region,” Neilsen said.
Experts like Neilsen continue to push for vaccinations and boosters, saying it’s the best protection against any variant.
Moderna announced Monday that a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine should offer protection against omicron.
Moderna said lab tests showed the half-dose booster shot increased by 37 times the level of so-called neutralizing antibodies able to fight omicron. And a full-dose booster was even stronger, triggering an 83-fold jump in antibody levels, although with an increase in the usual side effects, the company said.
Yet many across Northeast Florida have yet to get the first two shots.
At last check, about 70% of Floridians were fully vaccinated — two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine and one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Across Northeast Florida, those numbers were much lower. In Duval County, 61% of those eligible were fully vaccinated. In Clay County, it was 55%. And in Baker County, it was 43%. But in St. Johns County, 71% were vaccinated.
“Breakthrough cases are not new for COVID. We see breakthrough cases every year with the flu shot. We see it with chickenpox and shingles. But if you are vaccinated and are boosted, you are better protecting yourself from a severe outcome if you do get that virus,” Neilsen said.
That means, if you do get sick, you are far less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19.
And while health officials are confident omicron is far more transmissible than delta, they can not say for certain if it is less deadly. While many of the cases we know about have been reported to be mild, most of those individuals are vaccinated.
The U.S. surgeon general sent a warning Monday that if you are unvaccinated, the risk of being hospitalized or losing your life to the virus is quite significant.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.