The surge has hit the Northeast particularly hard in recent weeks. Hospitalizations have doubled or nearly doubled in Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York since Nov. 1.
But while hospitalizations are rising across the country, the states with the highest hospitalization figures — Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — all have lower vaccination rates.
The winter Covid surge comes as the new, highly contagious omicron variant is spreading rapidly across the country. The number of people with Covid has risen 30 percent in the last two weeks, according to NBC News’ tally, causing the NBA and the NHL to postpone games, Broadway shows to cancel performances and companies like Apple to reconsider return-to-office plans.
It’s still too early to tell whether the omicron variant causes more severe illness than previous Covid variants. Early data suggests it may cause less severe symptoms in vaccinated people, and data from the vaccine manufacturers Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna suggests that vaccine boosters provide more protection than an initial one- or two-dose series.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
