White House advisor on Corona issues and top US virologist Dr. Fauci surprises with a hammer announcement! “This is how the pandemic will end now”! The country’s leading virus expert has changed his prediction thanks to the Omicron variant.
As 2022 begins, the third year of COVID will begin in the United States. Many virus experts had previously said they expected the new year to bring an end to the pandemic, predicting Delta would be the final wave and peak around Thanksgiving. But that same week, a new variant of the virus was discovered. Omicron has spread so quickly that it is now the predominant variant in the U.S., responsible for more than 73 percent of infections in the country, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). What do virus experts expect now that the Omicron variant is causing the number of cases to skyrocket again? Read on for the latest forecast from COVID White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci.
There may be no real end in sight to the COVID pandemic, at least not in the traditional sense. In an interview with CBS Mornings on December 21, Fauci spoke about the future of the pandemic amid the rapidly spreading Omicron variant. According to the infectious disease expert, people in the U.S. will “probably” have to learn to live with the coronavirus, just as they already do with the common cold and flu.
But that doesn’t mean the pandemic will continue to be as problematic as it is now, Fauci said. Eventually, the U.S. will reach a point where the infection rate is low and the virus no longer dominates everyday life. “We hope to reach that point soon,” he said.
COVID won’t always be this severe, Fauci says.
Despite legitimate concerns, Omicron’s ability to produce breakthrough cases and reinfections could be beneficial to the overall end of the pandemic, according to Fauci. The infectious disease expert hopes that after this Omicron surge, there will be enough people who are either vaccinated or have recovered from COVID infection to achieve “some level of immunity in the community.” This could lead to the kind of immunity in the population that will help move COVID from a pandemic to an endemic disease, where the virus can be controlled and circulates in low levels.
“That’s entirely conceivable and even likely,” Fauci said on CBS Mornings. “We’re not going to be in a situation of this intensity indefinitely.”
Fauci also warns that unvaccinated people still need to get vaccinated.
Unvaccinated people, however, can’t just wait out the virus. Fauci said it is critical for those in the U.S. who have not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated to help contain the spread of the virus. According to the CDC’s latest data, only slightly more than 61 percent of the eligible U.S. population was fully vaccinated as of Dec. 22. However, to reach a level where COVID no longer dominates the country, Fauci says that number must rise.
“We first need to reach the 50 million or so people who are eligible for vaccination but are not vaccinated,” he explained. “If we want to minimize the spread of the disease and get back to normal levels, we need to get these people vaccinated.
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Omicron has led to an increase in breakthrough cases due to its “really spectacular ability to spread from person to person,” Fauci said. With the increasing number of breakthrough cases, some people may question the need for vaccination. However, these infections should not deter people in the U.S. from getting vaccinated for the first time or receiving a booster dose, Fauci said.
“They shouldn’t throw up their hands and say, ‘If you can get infected even though you’ve been vaccinated, why get vaccinated,'” he said. “There’s a big difference between a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person when they get infected in terms of the consequences of that infection.”
According to Fauci, both vaccinated and boosted individuals are much less likely to develop severe disease, even if they contract the Omicron variant. “The likelihood of a vaccinated and boosted person getting severely ill from the infection is very, very low. Unvaccinated people are the most at risk of not only getting infected, but getting severely ill,” he explained.
