White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said on the 27th local time that the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 caused by omicron mutations in the United States will increase in the future, but it will improve like in South Africa.
“We will continue to see surges for the time being,” Fauci told CNN, “but I fully expect the situation to improve.”
“I hope the situation will improve rapidly, as we saw in South Africa,” he added.
According to the New York Times, the average daily number of new infections in the United States for seven days as of the 26th was 214,499, an increase of 83% from two weeks ago.
This far surpasses the average daily record high of 164,374 at the time of the third outbreak in the United States, which was triggered by a delta mutation last summer.
Dr Fauci said it could be possible for the US to reach 500,000 new cases per day, but he doesn’t think it will get to that point. There are countermeasures such as vaccines and boosters.
In addition, Omicron-infected patients seem to have significantly less disease severity than Delta-infected people, but given the number of confirmed cases reaching 214,000 per day, “despite the decrease in severity, the surge in hospitalizations, especially among those who are not vaccinated, is increasing. It could happen,” he feared.
Dr Fauci also said that health authorities are considering ways to shorten the quarantine period for the general public when they have been infected with COVID-19 or come in contact with a confirmed person.
[사진 출처 : EPA=연합뉴스]
