Status: 12.01.2022 3:54 a.m.
In the US, the number of infections is constantly reaching new heights – at such a speed that experts now assume that the overwhelming majority of people will contract the virus.
According to leading US expert Anthony Fauci, the extremely contagious omicron variant of the corona virus will sooner or later affect almost everyone. “With the extraordinary and unprecedented effectiveness of the transfer, Omikron will ultimately find almost everyone,” said the immunologist and presidential adviser.
Vaccinated people would also get infected, but most of them would not be caught as hard, so they would not have to be hospitalized or would not die, Fauci said in an interview with the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Head of the US Medicines Agency with a similar warning
The worst will be those who are still not vaccinated, said Fauci. In the United States, only 208 million people, or just under 63 percent of the population, are fully vaccinated. Only 76 million people have received a booster vaccination so far.
Fauci’s testimony came just hours after a similar warning from acting chief of the US FDA, Janet Woodcock. “It’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, namely that most people will get Covid,” Woodcock told Omikron at a US Senate hearing. “We need to make sure that the hospitals are still working, that transportation and other essential services are not interrupted while this is happening.”
CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at the hearing that Omikron is “driving the number of cases to unprecedented levels here in the United States and around the world.” On average, over the past seven days, there have been around 750,000 confirmed new infections per day in the USA, according to CDC data.
“Idiot” – Fauci insults the US Senator after a heated exchange of blows
During a heated exchange of blows with Republican MPs at the hearing in the US Congress, Fauci broke the collar. The immunologist – whose microphone was still on after being questioned by Senator Roger Marshall – said of him, “What an idiot, Jesus Christ”. The word “Moron” used can also be translated as idiot, idiot or idiot.
The reason was the openly hostile questioning by Marshall, who wanted to know from the 81-year-old Fauci, as “the highest paid government employee”, whether he would disclose his finances and investments. Fauci replied that he had been doing this for more than 30 years: “You are so misinformed. It is extraordinary.”
Conservative MPs had repeatedly attacked Fauci in recent months. He is well respected in US society. For many Corona skeptics, vaccination and mask opponents from the right-wing fringe, on the other hand, he has become an enemy.
Fauci also criticizes Senator from Kentucky
In addition to the discussion with Senator Marshall, Fauci also found clear words for Senator Rand Paul, who is one of the expert’s greatest critics. Fauci linked the Kentucky MP’s attacks to the arrest of a man who wanted to drive from California to Washington armed with a rifle and testified that he wanted to kill Fauci.
The doctor told the congressional committee, “What if he (Rand Paul) comes out and accuses me of doing things that are totally untrue is that it suddenly gets the crazy people out there and my life is threatened, my family and harassing my kids on obscene phones – because people tell lies about me. ”
Omikron may be on the decline in the US and UK soon
Scientists are meanwhile seeing the first indications that the wave of infections with the omicron variant of the coronavirus in the USA could soon have peaked. The number of cases could then drop dramatically. The reason: Just one and a half months after it was discovered in South Africa, the variant turned out to be so highly contagious that hardly any people could be considered to be infected.
“It will go back as fast as it shot up,” says Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. At the same time, experts limit that much is still unknown about the development of the next phase of the pandemic. Reaching the plateau or the ebb of the wave in the two countries does not happen at the same time or at the same speed everywhere. In addition, many people would continue to contract the virus even if their numbers fell, says Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of a Covid-19 modeling consortium at the University of Texas that predicts the peak of the wave in the United States this week.
The University of Washington models see infection numbers peaking at 1.2 million by Jan. 19. Then the numbers would drop dramatically, “simply because anyone who could get infected will be infected,” Mokdad said.