Passengers queue at the South Security checkpoint in Denver International Airport terminal on Sunday, December 26, 2021 in Denver.
America’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that even though the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly around the world, cases of Kovid-19 are likely to continue to rise. The highly permeable variant has overtaken Delta to become the dominant variant, responsible for nearly three-quarters of the Covid cases in the country.
The US remains the most affected country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 52,259,716 and 816,597, according to the latest update from Johns Hopkins University on Monday morning. As of last Thursday, more than 51 million total cases had been reported in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The US also topped the total deaths due to the disease in mid-December.
“Every day it goes up and up. The previous weekly average was around 150,000 and it’s likely to be much higher,” Fauci said.
While studies show that Omicron is less serious in terms of hospitalization, Fauci stressed that people “shouldn’t be complacent” because “when you have such a high volume of new infections, it increases the severity.” can bridge the real shortfall in
“If you have many, many, many people with low levels of severity, it can neutralize the positive effect of having low severity when you have so many more people,” he explained. “And we’re especially concerned about the people who are in that unaffiliated class … they are the most vulnerable people when you have a virus that is exceptionally effective at reaching people.”
According to CDC data, only 61.7 percent of the US population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Meanwhile, last week President Joe Biden announced plans to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans starting in January. The tests will be delivered by mail to Americans who request them. A website to request tests will be launched in January, according to the administration.
However, the Omicron boom has created a huge rush for the tests, which according to Fauci is a failure of the federal government. “Obviously testing is going to be very important, that we get more testing capacity, especially when the demand for testing is so high,” Fauci said.
Fauci noted that the US is looking at “a combination of the Omicron version as well as the holiday season, where people want to get that extra level of assurance that they’re safe,” even if you’re vaccinated and boosted.
“One of the problems is that it’s not going to be fully available to everyone until January, and there are still some problems that people are having trouble testing, but we are addressing the testing problem, And that will be fixed very soon” he said.
In addition, he said there were “essentially at-home tests of care not available” at the start of the Biden administration in 2021.
“Now there are more than nine of them and more are coming”, he said, adding that “their production has increased exponentially”.
Last week, Biden was quoted as saying on ABC News that he wished he had thought about ordering 500 million home tests “two months ago.” Biden added “nothing good has happened” when it comes to the availability of at-home tests.
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