US top medical chief Anthony Fauci has predicted that Omicron cases are likely to peak by January-end.
In response to a question about when Covid cases would peak in America, President Joe Biden’s top medical advisor Fauci told CNBC on Wednesday, “I would imagine, given the size of our country and the diversity of vaccination versus not vaccination, that it likely will be more than a couple of weeks, probably by the end of January, I would think.”
Omicron has been fuelling fresh COVID-19 wave in the US with the new variant recording 59 per cent of all coronavirus cases in the country.
According to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, the US recorded 265,427 COVID-19 cases in a week, which was the highest since January this year.
The new variant is considered most transmissible than the others, although the number of severe cases has remained relatively low even as hospitalisations have increased.
Also Read: France reports record COVID-19 cases as Europe battles Omicron
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 9,000 coronavirus patients are being hospitalised daily in the United States amid the Omicron surge.
The federal health officials have said that even though hospitalisations are rising, the virus deaths in the US have been declining.
According to the CDC, Omicron is estimated to be 58.6 per cent of COVID-19 variants circulating in the US. While the Delta variant, which was the main reason for the Covid spike earlier this year, is now accounting for 41.1 per cent of all cases in the country.
Also Read: ‘Tsunami of cases’: Delta & Omicron are twin threats, says WHO
California, New York are among the worst-hit states from COVID-19 at present.
On Tuesday, California became the first state across the country to report more than five million cases in total. More than 86,000 people tested positive for Covid in the last 24 hours.
The US CDC has listed California as an area with “high” transmission of the virus.
(With inputs from agencies)
