Although a total of 9.1 billion doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide to date, the coronavirus continues to increase its effectiveness by mutating. The Omicron variant, which emerged in the days when the whole world was struggling with the Delta variant, caused many countries to take new measures and revealed the necessity of the third dose of the vaccine.
All research on the Omicron variant showed that it was more contagious than Delta, the most dominant variant today. Today, another comforting statement came about the lethality of the variant. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held a press release at the White House.
Although the number of hospitalizations and cases increased, the death rate decreased:
The CDC explained in its press release that despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in recent weeks, hospitalization and death rates remain “relatively low” compared to the Delta variant. CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky stated that the number of positive cases increased by 60% compared to last week to 240 thousand, and hospitalizations increased by 14% to 9 thousand.
Although there was a significant increase in the number of positive cases and hospitalizations in a short time, death rates decreased by 7% in the same period. It is stated that the death rate in the USA is around 1,100 per day. Another statement supporting the CDC is the Director of the U.S. Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. It came from Anthony Fauci.
Fauci stated that Omicron will follow a lower graph in positive cases and hospitalizations compared to the Delta variant. He emphasized that COVID-19 vaccines will be critical for this fight. Expressing that a second vaccine may be needed against Omicron, Fauci added that there is not enough data on how much protection the current booster vaccines provide.
On the other hand, although the data show that death rates are falling for now, Walensky and Fauci warn that the real data on hospitalizations and deaths may be understood with a two-week delay.
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