Delaware Dec. 20 (US): The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is “raging around the world,” the White House’s chief medical advisor said Sunday as President Joe Biden prepares to issue a “stark warning of what winter” will look like “to unvaccinated Americans.
Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the “real problem” for the US hospital system is that “we have a lot of people who are eligible to vaccinate in this country who are not yet vaccinated.”
The prospect of a cold winter due to a wave of coronavirus infections is a sharp reflection of the optimism Biden predicted about 10 months ago, when he suggested at CNN’s town hall that the country would essentially be back to normal by Christmas this year. Biden has been careful not to over-promise, but confidence in the country has been battered by a relentless wave of COVID-19 surges and changes that has left many Americans emotionally exhausted, frustrated and worried about infection, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tried to defend the former president’s promise in a separate interview Sunday in “State of the Union” on CNN.
“The idea of hope and aspiration to become independent from the virus after a period of time is understandable and reasonable,” Fauci said. “But the one thing we know from nearly two years of experience with this virus is that it’s really unpredictable.”
With the threat that rising infections could exacerbate the supply chain challenges facing the United States and fuel inflation, Governor Jared Polis, de Colo, said Biden should stop talking about vaccination as a two-dose and booster, and instead call it the “three doses” needed To achieve maximum protection.
Polis focused on inflation, which has reached its highest level in nearly four decades, saying Biden in his remarks Tuesday about the omicron variable needed to show the country how to deal with the rising cost of goods.
“We can do very concrete things that really reduce costs to Americans,” Polis told NBC, noting that Colorado is lowering vehicle registration fees and making it free to register a new company.
Management anticipates a series of supernatural injuries as vacation travelers increase. Fauci said most people who have been vaccinated and given a booster dose should be fine if they take precautions such as wearing masks in crowded places including airports.
Biden plans to speak Tuesday about the state of the fight against COVID-19 and discuss government assistance to communities that need help, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted. She also said it would issue “a stark warning of what winter will look like for Americans who choose not to get vaccinated.”
Fauci was asked on CNN if he was expecting a record number of cases – and what about hospitalizations and deaths. “Yeah, well, unfortunately, I think that’s going to happen,” he said.
Fauci told NBC that the president would once again urge people to get the booster vaccine, highlight the increased availability of tests, discuss the “surge teams” of beleaguered hospitals, and explain how important it is to provide vaccines to the rest of the world.
“The one thing that’s very clear, there’s no doubt about that, is its extraordinary ability to spread, its ability to travel. It’s just, you know, raging all over the world, really,” Fauci said. Areas that start with a few percent of positive isolations, now go up to 30 percent, 40 percent, and some places 50 percent.”
Psaki’s announcement Saturday on Twitter came after Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that the Biden administration “didn’t expect a delta to emerge. I think most scientists — whose advice and guidance we relied on — didn’t see a delta coming.” She added, “We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this terrible virus was, which, as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”
The vice president’s words raised doubts about the administration’s strategy to tackle the pandemic. Biden declared his de facto independence from the virus at a White House celebration on July 4th to advance vaccinations within the United States, but the global nature of the pandemic means the disease can develop while others around the world wait for an immunization.
Fauci told NBC that he saw the variants coming and thought Harris’ statement was “taken a bit out of context,” adding that he thought it was referring to “the sheer number of mutations…especially with the omicron. Nobody expected that much but we were well prepared.” We expected that we would see changes.”
MI