Early feedback on Omicron severity ‘encouraging’: Fauci
- Early indications suggest Omicron may be less dangerous than Delta variant
- Cases of Omicron have so far been confirmed in dozens of countries
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Early indications of the severity of the Omicron Covid-19 variant are “a bit encouraging,” top US pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci said on Sunday, while cautioning more information was still needed.
“Omicron has a transmission advantage” in South Africa, where the variant was first reported, said Fauci in a CNN interview, noting the country had a low level of cases before it saw “almost a vertical spike upwards, which is almost exclusively Omicron”.
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“Though it’s too early to really make any definitive statements about it, thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it. Thus far, the signals are a bit encouraging,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Medical experts have in recent days underscored that the South African population skews young and that more severe cases could emerge in the coming weeks.
Lab tests are under way to determine whether Omicron – a heavily mutated strain of the virus – is more transmissible than other strains, resistant to immunity from vaccination and infection or more severe, with results expected within weeks.
Norway party is biggest Omicron superspreader outside South Africa
“I think that there’s a real risk that we’re going to see a decrease in effectiveness of the vaccines,” Stephen Hoge, president of vaccine producer Moderna, told ABC.
“What I don’t know is how substantial that is,” he added. “Is it going to be the kind of thing that we saw with the Delta variant, which is, ultimately vaccines were still effective, or are we going to see something like a 50 per cent decrease in efficacy, which would mean we need to reboot the vaccines.”
Moderna, like other pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, has already started work to adapt their vaccines if necessary.
Cases of the Omicron variant have so far been confirmed in at least 15 states and some 40 countries.
Fauci said the Biden administration was considering lifting travel restrictions against non-citizens entering the United States from several African countries. They were imposed as the omicron variant exploded in the region, but UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has blasted such measures as “travel apartheid”.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to lift that ban in a quite reasonable period of time,” Fauci said. “We all feel very badly about the hardship that has been put on not only on South Africa but the other African countries.”
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Two years into the outbreak, Covid-19 has killed over 780,000 Americans, and deaths are running at about 860 per day.
More than 6,600 new hospital admissions are being reported daily, according to tracking data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Covid-19 cases and deaths in the US have dropped by about half since the Delta peak in August and September, but at more than 86,000 new infections per day, the numbers are still high, especially heading into the holidays, when people travel and gather with family.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
