occupancy for covid-positive patients dr. shikah advises calm for other countries now dealing with omicron have we seen high infection rate translate to high disease rates that would have been a reason for concern however, we have not seen a greater severity of disease with the current variant of omicron in fact, the death rate in south africa has barely risen dr. angela kunzi has identified the new omicron variant. what can the united states expect to see given the cases? a high number of cases, but you look at your death rate and icu cases, it doesn t matter how high your positivity rate is as long as your hospitals are not overwhelmed. the head of the cdc said the u.s. might mimic south african places. i do think in places that we are seeing a really steep incline, that we may well see a precipitous decline, but we re also a much bigger country than south