The Omicron surge is now on a downward trend in Orange County Florida. However, the number of cases per week is still close to the peak of the delta surge.   Our case positivity rate is “only” 18.2%   (after a peak of 36.2% the week of Jan 7th). That same week there were 27,941 confirmed cases out of a population of 1,457,445, or two people out of every hundred were infectious that week.

The CDC data from Florida in general show that the total deaths from the omicron surge is significantly lower than that of the delta surge.   This is partially due to the fact that more people have been vaccinated (or previously infected with an earlier variant, or already dead), and mostly due to the fact that the omicron variant is generally less deadly than prior variants of the virus.

According to the CDC since the beginning of the pandemic, Orange County has had a total of 2,933 deaths where COVID-19 was involved (11.8% of 24,786 total deaths from all causes in the same time period).   This is a covid-19 death rate of 201 individuals per 100,000 population.

Needless to say, the orange county public schools had a significant number of their students and staff catch COVID-19 as they returned from winter break. However, the total number of cases in the schools has been falling in line with the above county level graph.

Data from the Florida Hospital Association shows that the peak of hospitalizations occurred in mid January. Although almost 20% of ICU beds are occupied by covid-19 positive individuals, there are ICU beds still available and the number of hospitalizations are going down. The total number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 is trending gradually downwards, but the percentage of ICU patients with COVID-19 has slightly increased from this time last month.   Luckily, the majority of patients hospitalized with the Omicron variant do not need to be moved to the ICU.

Adding an orange line showing total hospitalizations in Florida to the number of deaths chart shown above clearly shows that while a significant number of people are being hospitalized, the number is smaller than with the Delta surge, and the proportional number of deaths (when compared to hospitalizations) is also lower.