HOCC Keeping Close Eye On Omicron Variant

By Ciara Hooks, The Bristol Press

December 13, 2021

During the Media Briefing on Thursday Hartford HealthCare experts shared that it’s slightly too early to tell full impact of the omicron variant in Connecticut but they have been keeping a close eye on the data.

“I do believe there is not much we can conclude on omicron at this point in time, but if the data that we have, the opportunity to see with the very limited cohort it seems like it is possibly less virulent possibly might be more contagious. But the key terms that I used are possible and might. But if we’re able to conclude that at some point in time we’ll have data that we’re able to talk about more publicly,” said Keith Grant, APRN, Senior System Director, Infection Prevention, Hartford HealthCare.

Ulysses Wu, MD, Chief Epidemiologist & System Director, Infectious Diseases, Hartford HealthCare said that the omicron variant is more likely to be transmissible at this time and it may have the ability to evade immune systems.

“Vaccines will be effective maybe not as effective against omicron,” said Wu.

As of Friday morning, Hartford HealthCare has 201 positive covid-19 patients in their acute facilities. There are 48 positive covid-19 patients at HOCC.

According to Hartford HealthCare, Connecticut had 436,143 covid cases and 8,946 deaths.

“It’s really important to note that the numbers are exactly where we were in February of 2021 somewhere around the 14th or 15th. and if you track back in the previous surge models the last time when we had this number was back in November of 2020 about 200 patients. Prior to that was the initial surge which was in the late part of March of 2020. So, we’re seeing this increased number and we’re noticing across Connecticut as well and interestingly the trend in the numbers hasn’t changed in terms of types of patients, largely unvaccinated,” said Ajay Kumar, Chief Clinical Officer, Hartford HealthCare. “We have about 24-26% of vaccinated coming in as well most of them are incidental findings.”

Kumar added that Hartford HealthCare is managing capacity rather well and don’t expect any issues with access to patients or any issues with patient admission or procedures.

“Our models are still evolving although omicron is rather new and we’re still learning about this virus every single day. We think this is probably related to the cold weather possible thanksgiving gathering possible increased travel and decreased compliance of the masks in the community and this will plateau out it will be controlled we might see some more increase but most likely we’ll be able to weather the storm this time as a healthcare system,” he said.

“As far as boosters go like we said last week the delta variant is what we have in front of us today and we all strongly believe that getting a booster is our best defense for that,” said Eric Arlia, Senior Director, System Pharmacy, Hartford HealthCare.

Hartford HealthCare continues to review appointment availability and capacity.