A health expert said that a surge in COVID-19 case numbers shouldn’t be the main metric by which the severity of the pandemic is measured.

“For two years, infections always preceded hospitalizations which preceded deaths, so you could look at infections and know what was coming,” said Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University and a former Harvard health expert. “Omicron changes that. This is the shift we’ve been waiting for in many ways.”

Jha’s comments came during an appearance on ABC’s This Week.

According to Jha, vaccinated people “are gonna bounce back” if they contract COVID-19.

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

However, Jha said it remains important for health officials to track infections among the non-vaccinated “because those people will end up in the hospital.”

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

According to The Hill, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently said he’s optimistic the country is in a better position to beat the pandemic, citing enhanced testing and inoculation capabilities.

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Health expert: Surge in COVID-19 cases should no longer be ‘major metric’ of pandemic