Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday predicted that the most recent wave of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic might hit its peak within the U.S. by the tip of January.
“It’s robust to say,” stated Fauci, President Joe Biden’s high medical advisor, when requested on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” at what level the present surge in infections, fueled by the omicron variant, will begin to recede.
“It definitely peaked fairly rapidly in South Africa,” the place the extremely transmissible new variant was recognized final month, Fauci stated. “It went up nearly vertically and circled in a short time.”
“I might think about, given the dimensions of our nation and the range of vaccination versus not vaccination, that it doubtless will likely be greater than a few weeks, most likely by the tip of January, I might suppose,” Fauci stated.
Fauci additionally stated it’s technically attainable that omicron might hasten the tip of the pandemic, if it proves true that that variant, with its excessive diploma of transmissibility, replaces different strains of the virus that trigger extra extreme infections.
“I might hope that is the case,” Fauci stated when requested about that chance, however “there isn’t any assure that that might occur.”
But “in case you have a really transmissible virus that replaces one other virus, and [the replacement virus] has much less of a level of severity, that might be a optimistic end result,” he stated.
“But you’ll be able to by no means assure,” he burdened. “This virus has fooled us earlier than. Remember we thought with the vaccines every thing was going to be advantageous, and alongside got here delta, which threw a monkey wrench into every thing.”
Then got here omicron, Fauci famous, which has fueled an enormous spike in instances all over the world — together with within the U.S., the place a record-high variety of Covid infections have been reported this week.
Still, consultants have been “happy to see” that latest information from quite a few nations present omicron infections are much less extreme than these from delta, Fauci stated.
“What you say is feasible, that that might occur, however there isn’t any assure that that might imply the tip of a critical outbreak,” Fauci stated.
“I hope that is what’s being foreshown now, proper? That we will be seeing that,” he added. “Hope so, however cannot assure it.”