COVID-19 Cases No Longer ‘Major Metric’ For Tracking Pandemic, Says Health Expert

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University, told Jonathan Karl on ABC’s This Week Sunday that health experts and the public should change the way they look at data related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jha argued that as vaccination rates rise and vaccines continue to offer protection against severe illness, the number of new infections from Covid-19 means less than they used to.

“For two years, infections always preceded hospitalizations which preceded deaths, so you could look at infections and know what was coming,” Jha said.

“Omicron changes that,” he added. “This is the shift we’ve been waiting for in many ways.” Jha’s comments come as many U.S. states record their highest case numbers yet. Florida hit a new record in the pandemic for the second day in a row as the state reported 32,850 daily new cases on Saturday, reported the AP.

Record tolls from countries around the globe, like France, also dominated headlines over the weekend.

“That’s very different than what we have seen in the past,” Jha continued. “So I no longer think infections, generally, should be the major metric.”

“But we really need to focus on hospitalizations and deaths now,” he concluded.

Watch above via ABC News