Giving a cause for optimism to the people rattled by the Covid-19 fueled by Omicron variant, White House chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci has said that a growing body of data indicates that the Covid omicron variant is less severe than the Delta strain.
However, he cautioned that hospitals could still face stress through the unprecedented number of new infections sweeping across the U.S. His comments come amid an exponential rise in Covid cases in India on Thursday when the infections breached the 90,000 mark with the majority of States reporting huge spikes in the cases.
The doctor cautioned against complacency, urging the public to follow public health guidance by getting vaccinated, boosted and wearing a mask.
“Multiple sources of now-preliminary data indicate a decrease in severity with omicron,” Fauci told the public during a Covid update from the White House response team, according to reports. “However, we really do need more definitive assessment of severity with longer-term follow up here and in different countries.”
Fauci cited a study from Ontario, Canada, that found the risk of hospitalization or death was 65% lower among people infected with omicron compared with individuals who caught delta.
The risk of admission to an intensive care unit or death from omicron was 83% lower, according to the study.
He also pointed to a study from South Africa that found about 5% of infections during the omicron wave resulted in hospital admission, compared with 14% during delta. Patients admitted to the hospital during the omicron wave were 73% less likely to have severe disease compared with the delta wave, according to the data.
Fauci also said the lung infection from omicron appears less severe than previous variants, citing recent animal studies of mice and hamsters.
“It was shown that the virus proliferates very well in the upper airway and bronchi, but actually very poorly in the lungs,” Fauci said. While this does not definitively prove omicron is more mild, it is consistent with the variant transmitting very quickly but causing less severe lung infections,” he said.
Fauci warned that even if omicron proves less severe, the variant is spreading so quickly that it could still produce a large number of patients who do require hospital care, straining the nation’s health-care system.