With Omicron cases in South Africa declining, could the United States see the same?

The numbers are startling, the state of Nebraska now hitting a new record for the number of COVID-19 in one day and the same can be said for Lancaster county.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) –The numbers are startling, the state of Nebraska now hitting a new record for the number of COVID-19 in one day and the same can be said for Lancaster county. On Wednesday the county saw a high of 736 COVID cases reported in a single day.

Not only is it putting a strain on the health care systems, it’s also impacting workers, many of them getting sick themselves.

“When one person cannot work, everybody’s taking extra shifts, working extra hours. So, it’s getting hard,” Dr. Renuga Vivekanandan, Chief of Infectious Disease, CHI Health-Creighton University, said.

With cases rising everyday, it leads to the question, when will we hit our peak? South Africa, where the Omicron variant was first detected saw a major spike in cases for a few weeks, but they are finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Dr. Matthew Donahue, the acting state epidemiologist said the U.S. could see a similar trend but he was hesitant to say for sure after seeing what the Delta variant did.

“The answer with Delta was six to eight weeks. So, I was very, very hopeful at six to eight weeks here in Nebraska our delta surge would turn around, but we went a bit longer than that. Then delta came back and spiked again. I’m hesitant to apply what’s happened elsewhere here,” Dr. Donahue said.

The director of the CDC with a similar hope saying in a briefing last Friday that she does believe places that are seeing a steep incline may also see a sharp decline but that it was important to note that America is much larger country than South Africa, so that could have an impact.