The curve is trending down but this isn't quite the end of omicron, doctors say

For the second straight day, the average daily case curve is trending down, with the state averaging nearly 29,000 new cases a day.

That's still high but down 12 percent since the beginning of the week. Doctors say there's a slight glimmer of hope as the the case curve is making a turn downward.

But is this the end of omicron?

"Maybe the beginning of the end of the omicron surge is what we're keeping our fingers crossed for," said Dr. David Wohl, an infectious disease specialist at UNC.

The surge came quickly with the average number of new cases added daily going up more than 700% in just one month.

"This is way out of proportion," said Wohl. "We still have a lot of cases."

The specialist says even after this surge, omicron will be around still but likely at a lower level. The issue is, it’s been able to infect tens of thousands of North Carolinians daily right now.

North Carolina Coronavirus dashboard - Maps, charts and data

"It can infect widely," Wohl said. "Even people who have some resistance to other streams of COVID-19, that perpetuation allowed it to find the vulnerable people who ended up in our hospitals."

And in hospitals right now, admissions are still going up. Wohl says to look at the ICUs – 803 people with COVID are in there today, the most since September 29. In our area - the Capitol region -there are only 8 beds available. In the Duke region, it's 19 available beds, or about 11% of them.

"We're still in the thick of things," said Wohl. "It's still really high. There are still people dying every day from omicron. Let's be really, really clear – omicron is a dangerous virus."

The case trend was on track with what models were predicting, leaving Wohl optimistic that, come mid-February or early March, our numbers will be much different.