US Chief Infectious Disease Officer Anthony Fauci has stated that the spike in disease incidence that accompanies the spread of a new strain is threatening overcrowding in US hospitals
As Fauci noted, for the Omicron strain, what distinguishes it from other variations of the coronavirus is a lower rate of hospital admissions, a shorter length of stay for infected people in hospitals and “less need for oxygen”.
“But we don’t want to get complacent… If you have many, many more people getting sick, it can negate the positive effect of reducing the severity of the disease”, – Fauci said.
The new Omicron strain, for now, is prevalent in the US and has already led to a new surge in the pandemic. According to Fauci, the average number of cases last week was as high as 150,000 per day and that figure is “likely to grow much higher”.