Omicron In Oregon: Officials Predict Surge Worse Than Under Delta

PORTLAND, OR — Hospitals across Oregon are straining under the impact of the surge of COVID-19's delta variant. Week after week, the number of available hospital beds for adults has been 10 percent of capacity or less. Another way of looking at that is for weeks, hospitals have been at 90 percent or greater capacity.

According to numbers released late Friday, the Oregon Health Authority said that across the state, 92 percent of ICU beds for adults and 94 percent of non-ICU beds for adults are full.

In some areas, the picture os even worse.

In what the OHA calls "Region 1" – which includes Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Multnomah, Tillamook, and Washington Counties – 93 percent of ICU beds for adults are full and 99 percent of non-ICU beds for adults are full.

In Region 2 – which is Benton, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, and Yamhill Counties – the numbers are roughly the same.

Officials say that it's about to get worse.

"We have about two to three weeks before we’ll see omicron accelerate and become the dominant strain circulating in Oregon," the director of the OHSU Office of Advanced Analytics, Peter Graven, Ph.D., said.

"We expect that cases will ramp up quickly."

Graven just led a new forecast by OHSU that states omicron will "drive a wave of severe illness that will eclipse previous surges of hospitalizations in Oregon."

While Oregon has only had three cases of the omicron variant through December 17, Graven and his colleagues expect that number to rise. And quickly.

They've been studying the situations in the United Kingdom and Denmark, which have similar immunity profiles to Oregon.

"Since the first cases were detected there almost three weeks ago, it is now doubling every two to three days," they say.

If the OHSU forecast holds, there will be extreme strain on the hospitals starting in mid-January.

While the rate of serious illness doesn't appear to be as prevalent as with delta, it's causing more serious illness in more vulnerable populations.

"Too many people will fall through the cracks and need hospital beds," Graven says.

The current forecast says that the peak of the next surge should arrive by late February.

Graven says that their study shows the need for people – especially in the most vulnerable communities – to get vaccinated and receive booster shots.