U.S. braces for Omicron, prepares for African country travel ban
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"Inevitably, it will be here," although no cases have been
detected yet, the nation's top infectious disease official, Dr.
He added that U.S. health officials would speak with their
counterparts in
It "is to get us better prepared, to rev up on the vaccination, to be really ready for something that may not actually be a big deal, but we want to make sure that we're prepared for the worst," he separately told NBC News' "Meet the Press" program.
The new Omicron coronavirus variant, first discovered in
Potentially more contagious https://www.reuters.com/world/how-worried-should-we-be-about-omicron-variant-2021-11-27 than previous variants, Omicron has sparked worries worldwide, rattling markets and public-health experts who have long warned about ongoing changes to the novel coronavirus amid the race to vaccinate against it.
"It clearly is giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. That's the thing that's causing us now to be concerned," Fauci said on "Meet the Press."
Its appearance stateside could threaten to undermine the nation's recovery nearly two years after COVID-19's emergence and further pressure local healthcare systems that have already felt the weight of the recent Delta variant.
Rising cases as colder weather forces more people indoors
amid ongoing vaccine hesitancy that has left many people in some
U.S. regions unprotected has also forced some hospital systems
and U.S. states, including
So far, 781,797 people have died in
U.S. President Joe Biden, due to arrive back in
Meanwhile,
Beginning at
Still, Delta Air Lines (DAL) and United Airlines have said they are not planning any changes to their South Africa-U.S. routes despite the Biden administration's curbs. It was not immediately clear what additional steps travelers may face coming from the region as flights continued over the weekend.
Fauci and other top officials said the sudden burst of cases made Omicron worrisome, but it was not yet clear how current vaccines or therapeutics would be impacted. Vaccine makers Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna (MRNA) have said they expect more information soon.
"We need more data there before we can say confidently that
this is not a severe version of the virus but we should find
that out in the next couple weeks," outgoing National Institutes
of Health Director
Fauci pressed Americans to continue get COVID-19 vaccines and boosters while experts evaluate Omicron.
"This is a clarion call...(to) get vaccinated," he told NBC.
(Additional reporting by