As omicron looms, US is still battling the delta wave

While all eyes are on the new and little-understood omicron variant, the delta form of the coronavirus isn't finished wreaking havoc in the U.S., sending record numbers of patients to the hospital in some states, especially in the Midwest and New England.

“Omicron is a spark that’s on the horizon. Delta variant is the fire that’s here today,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the state Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine, where a record 334 people were in the hospital with COVID-19 as of midweek.

The U.S. recorded its first known omicron infection on Wednesday, in a fully vaccinated person who had returned to California from South Africa, where the variant was first identified just over a week ago.

And a second U.S. case was confirmed Thursday in Minnesota, involving a vaccinated man who had been in New York City. That would suggest the variant has begun to spread within the country.

But there is much that is unknown about omicron, including whether it is more contagious than previous versions, makes people sicker or more easily thwarts the vaccine or breaks through the immunity that people get from a bout of COVID-19.

For now, the extra-contagious delta variant accounts for practically all cases in the U.S. and continues to inflict misery at a time when many hospitals are struggling with shortages of nurses and a backlog of patients undergoing procedures that had been put off early in the pandemic.

The fear is that omicron will foist even more patients, and perhaps sicker ones, onto hospitals.

“For me, it’s really just, I can’t imagine," said Dr. Natasha Bhuyan, a family physician in Phoenix. "Are we going to see another surge in cases that’s even higher than what we’re seeing now? What will that do to our health system? What will that do to our...