The World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a press conference on December 20, 2021.
The World Health Organization said that the variant of the omicron coronaviruses is causing a lot of cases in health systems around the world.
The director-general of the World Health Organization said in a press briefing Thursday that it does not mean that omicron should be categorized as "mild." Omicron is hospitalizing people and killing people.
The US is still experiencing a rise in cases and hospitalizations from the quick-spreading variant. According to the latest analysis by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, omicron accounted for 95 percent of all cases in the US in the week ending January 1. As recently as the week ending on December 4, the delta variant made up over 99 percent of US cases.
There is a huge wave of cases with omicron's rise to dominance. The US added over 1 million cases on Monday. The seven-day average for new daily cases is over 585,000, which is a 257 percent increase from two weeks ago.
Despite reports that a smaller proportion of omicron cases lead to severe disease and hospitalizations, hospitalizations are rising sharply in the US. Hospitals in the US, the UK, and South Africa have reported that those who end up in the hospital with omicron are faring better than those who don't. The worst cases of COVID-19 are still being faced by people across the board.
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We should not be lulled into a false sense of security.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US is up 58 percent from two weeks ago. hospitalizations seem to be rising.
The rising hospitalizations of children are of particular concern. According to The Washington Post, more than 4,000 children are currently in the hospital with COVID-19, an all-time high. The number of hospitalized children has doubled from two weeks ago. Several doctors and health experts have anecdotally reported seeing higher levels of COVID in children.
Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said in an interview on CBS's Face the Nation that omicron causes more disease in the upper airway than deep in the lung, which may be a problem for young children.
Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert, highlighted the evidence of less severe disease in the omicron wave. His tone was not as dire as that of Dr. Tedros, but he still added a note of caution.
Dr. Fauci said that we should not be lulled into a false sense of security. The increased transmissibility of omicron might be compromised by the sheer volume of cases. Those cases may be of reduced severity but could still stress our hospital system because of the large amount of cases that are going to be severe.
