Eric Berger: Has Covid case-counting now become a pointless exercise?

Case counts "don’t reflect what they used to", experts argue, as data suggests Omicron is less severe, but more contagious.

'We no longer need to identify and have public health manage every single case of the variant,' said Dr Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health. File Picture: Larry Cummins.

Some US infectious disease experts and public health officials are questioning whether to continue using the number of coronavirus cases as a metric for determining which mitigation efforts are appropriate, as data suggests Omicron is less severe but much more contagious than previous variants.

Those experts argue that the US has reached a stage in the pandemic where reports of dramatic surges in case counts prompt unnecessary worries, and that government officials and the public should instead review death and hospitalisation data when considering precautions.