Dr.
Data from
"Every day it goes up and up," Fauci, director of the
The spread of the variant continued to wreak havoc on holiday travel as 2,271 flights had been canceled as of Sunday, according to flightaware.
A
"Like many businesses and organizations, we have seen an increasing number of sick calls from Omicron," he said. "Despite our best efforts, we've had to cancel a number of flights, and additional flight cancellations and other delays remain a possibility as we see more Omicron community spread."
As of Sunday, 71,044 people nationwide had been hospitalized with COVID-19, drawing nearer to totals during the peak of the
Fauci on Sunday urged Americans not to "get complacent" despite studies showing Omicron appears to be less severe in terms of causing hospitalizations, noting that a high volume of new infections "might override a real diminution in severity."
"If you have many, many, many more people with a less level of severity, that might kind of neutralize the positive effect of having less severity when you have so many more people," he said. "And we're particularly worried about those who are in that unvaccinated class ... those are the most vulnurable ones when you have a virus that is extraordinarily effective in getting to people."
As of Sunday, 72.7% of the
President
Fauci said
"The situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, Omicron stirring people to go get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as the fact of the run on tests during the holiday season -- we've obviously got to do better," he said. "I think things will improve greatly as we get into January. But that doesn't help us today and tomorrow."
Copyright 2021 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent., source