The impact on hospitals
The new variant is proving more capable of spreading than the Delta. The impact on hospital admissions and deaths will now need to be assessed. In the graph below you can read the comparison between 2020 and 2021 with the historical data regarding new cases, positivity rate, hospitalizations and deaths.
It can easily be seen that the effect of mass vaccination is making itself felt in reducing the frequency of severe disease evolution. Today, despite the daily cases being more than a year ago, we have 1,023 hospitalized in intensive care in the country, compared to 2,624 as of 23 December 2020.
The difference is even more noticeable in the deaths. A year ago, given on a 7-day moving average, there were 593 daily deaths, today 128, or about one fifth. These numbers are growing, but at lower levels than a year ago.
It should not be forgotten that in that case we had been in the red zone for weeks in a large part of the country, with the effect of reducing serious hospitalizations (there were about 4 thousand at the end of November 2020, 4 times those today) and deaths (it was 741 on average at the day at the end of November, about 6 times those of today). We have been in the white zone for months now.
In the coming weeks, the trend of severe cases, intensive care and deaths, will give us the answers to some open questions regarding the severity of Omicron. According to some studies it would be inferior to the Delta, but its greater diffusion capacity could still increase the stress on hospitals.