Brown University School of Public Health Dean Ashish K. Jha said Sunday that the mild symptoms stemming from the omicron variant of COVID-19 should lead to a reevaluation of what to measure the pandemic by because infections among the vaccinated are now less likely to result in hospitalizations or deaths.
"For two years, infections always preceded hospitalizations which preceded deaths, so you could look at infections and know what was coming. Omicron changes that. This is the shift we’ve been waiting for in many ways," Jha said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week."
Jha said that the country is in a different state than it had been previously and noted that vaccinated individuals, particularly those who have been boosted, will "bounce back" if they become infected with the coronavirus.
"That's very different than what we have seen in the past," he said. "So I no longer think infections, generally, should be the major metric."
“For two years, infections always proceeded hospitalizations which proceeded deaths…Omicron changes that. This is the shift we’ve been waiting for in many ways."@ashishkjha tells @jonkarl number of new cases should no longer be major pandemic metric. https://t.co/J7RmT8QvS9 pic.twitter.com/XETOWOnzif
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 26, 2021
However, Jha did say that he believes it is still important for infections among those who have not been vaccinated to continue to be tracked because "those people will end up in the hospital."
"But we really need to focus on hospitalizations and deaths now," he said.
The U.S. is seeing COVID infection numbers not seen since the start of the pandemic, due in part to the highly infectious omicron variant, which has led to fully vaccinated and boosted people catching the virus.
The current coronavirus case count in the U.S. is reported to be more than 52 million people while the death toll since the start of the pandemic sits at more than 800,000, according to The New York Times COVID-19 data tracker.