Top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said there was still a danger of a surge in hospitalisation due to a large number of coronavirus cases even as early data suggests the Omicron variant is less severe.
“The only difficulty is that if you have so many cases, even if the rate of hospitalisation is lower with Omicron than it is with Delta, there is still the danger that you will have a surging of hospitalisations that might stress the healthcare system,” Fauci said in an interview on Sunday with CNN.
The sudden arrival of Omicron has brought record-setting case counts to countries around the world and dampened New Year festivities globally. However, “It looks, in fact, that it might be less severe, at least from data that we’ve gathered from South Africa, from the UK and even some from preliminary data from here in the United States,” Fauci said.
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