WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th December, 2021) Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor on COVID-19 to the US President, projects that the current increase in COVID-19 cases in the US caused by the Omicron variant is likely to peak by the end of January.
"It's tough to say. It certainly peaked pretty quickly in South Africa. ... I would imagine, given the size of our country and the diversity of vaccination versus not vaccination, that it likely will be more than a couple of weeks, probably by the end of January, I would think," Fauci said in an interview with CNBC, when asked about the decrease in the Omicron infections rate.
The top medical advisor also cited preliminary data as indicating that the Omicron infections were less severe than the Delta ones, but adding that the virus had "fooled us before."
On Wednesday, the Johns Hopkins University data indicated that more than 500,000 COVID-19 cases had been detected in the US. The average daily COVID-19 incidence has increased by about 60% in the US over the past week, while the COVID-19 death toll has decreased by 7%.
