COLUMBUS, Ohio — Labs in Ohio will quickly detect the omicron variant if it begins to spread in the state, Ohio health officials said.
What You Need To Know
- Officials are confident the omicron variant is not spreading in large numbers in Ohio
- On Thursday, the state reported the most single-day COVID-19 cases since January
- Some northern Ohio hospitals are being pressured to the brink from the virus surge
During a news conference Thursday, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff called attention to surging COVID-19 cases in Ohio. The trend is unrelated to the new variant, he said.
Vanderhoff said the state's variant monitoring efforts, through its own lab and partnerships with other labs in Ohio, provide helpful visibility as the omicron variant arrives in the U.S.
“We really have put a lot of emphasis on the ability of the state of Ohio to do careful and ongoing surveillance for the various variants of this virus, and to understand what's here and how it is impacting the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Vanderhoff said.
The state’s most recent sequencing data gives officials confidence that the cases in Ohio are being driven by the delta variant, Vanderhoff said.
“We also are able to say from that data that omicron is not driving those dynamics in any substantial way,” he said. “Now, could it be here and we've not yet detected it? Of course, that's possible, but what we do know is if it were present in any substantial manner, we would be detecting it.”
Much remains unknown about the variant because it has more than 30 mutations on the spike protein alone, Vanderhoff said.
“If and when it arrives in Ohio, rest assured we'll be looking for it,” he said. “We don't know yet if omicron will be more contagious, cause more severe, or less severe illness, or be more deadly."
Ohio reported 9,131 COVID-19 cases Thursday, the most in a single day since Jan. 8, according to state data. The state has reported 397 new virus deaths in the last week.
Virus hospitalizations have been rising in Ohio since early November, with the state reporting 3,916 hospitalized patients on Thursday.
The high patient levels are now pressuring some hospitals in northern parts of the state, Vanderhoff said. Hospitalizations are highest in the northeast corner of Ohio, he said.
The case trends are starting to show a bump from the Thanksgiving holiday that will likely persist for a few more days, Vanderhoff said.
“It comes on top of already a very large number of cases and a growing number of cases that we've been watching for a period of weeks, and there is no part of the state that is protected, or immune from this impact,” he said.
Hospital patients have been transferred as far as three hours from full hospitals in northern Ohio to get the care they need, according to Dr. Andrew Thomas, Ohio State Wexner’s Chief Clinical Officer.
“I'll be direct — I think there are some hospitals in the northern part of the state that have already started limiting elective procedures and elective surgeries — things that are not related to a cancer diagnosis, not related to a life-threatening or organ-threatening diagnosis, in order to make sure they have the capacity in their hospitals to take care of the patients that are there,” Thomas said.
The current surge in cases is comparable to what happened last December, when indoor gatherings during the cold season gave fuel to the virus, Thomas said.
"Our fear, much like when we were sitting here this time last year, is if these trends continue through the month of December into January, we will be at a point where the hospitals in Ohio will not be able to take care of all the patients we need to take care of," he said.
Thomas described growing burnout among health care workers, who have been working extra hours to deal with the strain from mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 patients.
“There's been a solution to a great degree to this problem available for a year, and, unfortunately, a lot of the citizens of our state have chosen not to get vaccinated," Thomas said.