“Even if (Omicron) is less virulent than earlier strains, if we have a point where we’re seeing a half-million cases a day or more, we are going to swamp our hospitals — even with a relatively low rate of hospitalization,” said CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences. “When you have that kind of denominator, our hospitals will be completely underwater as they are in some parts of the country,” he said…

Dr. Marc Gorelick, who heads Children’s Minnesota hospital, said the facility is already struggling to cope with the numbers.

When you’re on top of a surge where you’re already at 90%, 95% capacity, those extra … preventable Covid patients coming in are the thing that pushes the system to the brink. And that’s what we’re seeing here in Minnesota,” Gorelick told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Friday…

“We can expect a surge in Oregon hospitalizations by mid-January, with infections that begin sooner than that,” said Dr. Peter Graven, a data scientist for Oregon Health and Science University. “Combined with its heightened transmissibility, we expect Omicron will generate a large increase in the number of Oregonians that will become severely ill and likely need a hospital.”