Newsweek: Ohio doctor begs people 'no parties' for New Year's as state breaks COVID case record
UC infectious disease expert says people should skip New Year's Eve parties because of the surge
The state of Ohio continues to see cases of COVID-19 rise to record levels of almost 14,000 new cases per day. The number of patients hospitalized in Ohio has increased in recent weeks to over 5,000 after being under that number from the end of 2020 to the middle of December 2021.
In a story published by Newsweek, Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the UC College of Medicine expressed concern about people getting together for parties at the end of the year.
"Yeah, no parties. I would say no parties," Fichtenbaum said. "If you care at all about people who work in hospitals and health care, and you don't want us to quit our jobs and throw up our hands and go home, I would say no parties."
Fichtenbaum said the omicron variant doubles its presence in the population every two or three days, “far more contagious than any other variant we’ve experienced so far.” Even a small rise in hospitalizations adds more stress to overloaded hospitals.
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