Fauci says that early reports on omicron variants are encouraging

US health officials said on Sunday that although the omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading rapidly across the country, early signs indicate that it may be less dangerous than delta, which continues to drive a surge in hospital admissions.

President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN’s “State of the Union Address” that scientists need more information to draw conclusions about the severity of omicron.

Reports from South Africa, where it has emerged and are becoming the main strain, indicate that the hospitalization rate has not increased dramatically.

Fauci said: “So far, it doesn’t look serious.” “But before we make any certainty that it is not that serious or that it really does not cause any serious disease, we really have to be careful. Comparable.”

Fauci said the Biden administration is considering lifting travel restrictions on non-citizens entering the United States from several African countries. They were implemented when the omicron variant exploded in the area, but United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attacked measures such as “travel apartheid.”

“I hope we can lift the ban within a fairly reasonable time,” Fauci said. “We are all very sad about the difficulties not only for South Africa but for other African countries.”

As of Sunday, Omicron has been found in approximately one-third of the states in the United States, including the Northeast, South, Great Plains, and West Coast. Wisconsin, Missouri and Louisiana are the states with the latest confirmed cases.

But delta is still the main variant, accounting for more than 99% of cases and driving a surge in hospitalizations in the north. The National Guard has been dispatched to overwhelmed hospitals in western New York, and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker issued an emergency order requiring any hospital facing limited patient capacity to reduce non-urgent scheduled procedures.

U.S. officials continue to urge people to get vaccinated and receive booster shots, and take preventive measures, such as wearing a mask when among strangers indoors, and saying that anything that helps prevent delta can also help prevent other variants.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, told CBS’s “Face The Nation” that even if omicron is proven to be free of delta hazards, it still has problems.

“Even if we have a large number of mild cases, some of them will need to be hospitalized,” she said. “They will need to enter the intensive care unit, and some people will die…. We don’t want to see this happen in the difficult situation of delta spreading on a global scale.”

Two years after the outbreak, COVID-19 has killed more than 780,000 Americans and approximately 860 people die every day.

According to tracking data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 6,600 new hospital admissions are reported every day.

Since the delta peak in August and September, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States has dropped by about half, but the number of new infections per day exceeds 86,000, which is still high, especially before the holidays when people travel and party Time with family.