Omicron sweeps across America, now 73 per cent of new US Covid cases

Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the US accounting for 73 per cent of new infections last week federal health officials said Monday The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a sixfold increase in omicrons share of infections in only one weekIn much of the country its even higher Omicron is responsible for an estimated 90 per cent or more of new infections in the New York area the Southeast the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest The national rate suggests that more than 650000 omicron infections occurred in the US last weekSince the end of June the delta variant had been the main version causing US infections As recently as the end of November more than 995 per cent of coronaviruses were delta according to CDC data CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said the new numbers reflect the kind of growth seen in other countriesThese numbers are stark but theyre not surprising she said Scientists in Africa first sounded the alarm about omicron less than a month ago and on November 26 the World Health Organization designated it as a variant of concern The mutant has since shown up in about 90 countriesMuch about the omicron variant remains unknown including whether it causes more or less severe illness Early studies suggest the vaccinated will need a booster shot for the best chance at preventing omicron infection but even without the extra dose vaccination still should offer strong protection against severe illness and deathAll of us have a date with omicron said Dr Amesh Adalja a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security If youre going to interact with society if youre going to have any type of life omicron will be something you encounter and the best way you can encounter this is to be fully vaccinatedAdalja said he was not surprised by the CDC data showing omicron overtaking delta in the US given what was seen in South Africa the UK and Denmark He predicted spread over the holidays including breakthrough infections among the vaccinated and serious complications among the unvaccinated that could stress hospitals already burdened by deltaDr Eric Topol head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute said other countries had seen omicrons fast growth but the US data showed a remarkable jump in such a short time Topol also said its unclear how much milder omicron really is compared with other variantsThats the big uncertainty now Topol said We have to count on it being a lot of hospitalizations and a lot severe disease from omicron CDCs estimates are based on thousands of coronavirus specimens collected each week through university and commercial laboratories and state and local health departments Scientists analyze their genetic sequences to determine which versions of the COVID19 viruses are most abundantOn Monday the CDC revised its estimate for omicron cases for the week that ended December 11 after analyzing more samples About 13 per cent of the cases that week were from omicron not the 3 per cent previously reported The week before omicron accounted for just 04 per cent of casesCDC officials said they do not yet have estimates of how many hospitalizations or deaths are due to omicron Though there remain a lot of new infections caused by the delta variant I anticipate that over time that delta will be crowded out by omicron Walensky saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever