When it comes to the omicron variant, the problem in New York City hospitals hasn’t been too many patients — it’s been too few health care workers to treat them.

“The hospitalization story in New York City is mostly a story about the loss of staff,” said Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of the city’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals.

About 25% of staff are currently out sick, according to Katz. Officials say the hospital system overall has remained stable, but some workers tell of dire conditions.

“My E.R. has been overflowing for weeks now,” said Kelley Cabrera, a registered nurse at Jacobi Medical Center and a union leader with the New York State Nurses Association. “We’re holding so many admitted patients, meaning that the hospital is so full that there’s no rooms available for them once they’re admitted. So then they end up sitting in the emergency room for days at a time.”

Dr. Dan Baker, medical director at Lenox Hill Hospital, said the high transmissibility of omicron delivered a one-two punch. 

“An increase of people coming in with omicron and a decrease in those that were available to really care for them — that’s pretty hard,” he said.

The good news, hospital officials say, is that many staff who got sick are now returning. And while city and state data have shown COVID hospitalizations climbing for weeks, roughly half of those cases are patients admitted for other reasons who then test positive for the virus.

“Our patients have a broken arm and omicron,” Katz said. “Our patients are pregnant and have omicron. So the hospitalizations are way up, but not everybody’s here for omicron specifically.”

Katz says the city’s 10 public hospitals combined have only 80 more patients than normal right now. And while hospitalizations citywide are still rising, admissions typically lag a week or two behind new infections, which have leveled off.

According to state data, last Friday, Jan. 7, the city registered 47,591 infections. Tuesday, that number was 31,183.

“Right now, we’re at a pretty good place,” Baker said. “I think we’re really kind of at the crest of this particular wave.”

Dr. David Reich, president and CEO of Mount Sinai Hospital, said he’s hopeful that the number of COVID-19 patients discharged on a daily basis will soon exceed those who are newly admitted. 

“It’s looks like we are in the New York City area perhaps reaching that peak of hospitalizations relatively soon,” he said. “And then hopefully we can start to look on the other side towards a decline, so that our staff will be less stressed.”