| National Forecast | Combined Forecast |
|---|---|
 |  |
New CDC ensemble forecast for new hospital admissions and new weekly deaths through January 28th and January 29th respectively.
To put these forecasts in perspective, we already are at the previous all-time pandemic peak for new hospital admissions which was ~17k last January and the all-time pandemic peak for new weekly deaths was ~24k also last January. By the end of the month we may surpass the all-time pandemic peak for new weekly deaths and more than double the previous peak for new hospital admissions.
There is some uncertainty in these forecasts given Omicron's unpredictability, but even the lower bounds of the 95% prediction interval of the forecasts would surpass the Delta peak for new weekly deaths (~15k) and surpass the all-time peak for new hospital admissions by 50%.
Remarkable that this comes 9 months since broad availability of the vaccines. For the record, the unvaccinated are still much more likely to be hospitalized this wave. If you are fully vaccinated and especially if you are boosted the risk of hospitalization and death is quite low.
Stay safe in the coming weeks. We will eventually get to the other side of Omicron. But in the meantime there will be a lot of hospital disruption.