Fauci: Reports of milder COVID variant shouldn't be taken as signal US can lessen restrictions
Fox News
White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci cautioned Wednesday that the U.S. should not take reports of milder disease from the omicron variant of the coronavirus as a "signal that we can pull back from" health restrictions and recommendations.
However, he said, scientists need more "definitive assessment of similarity with longer-term follow-up" in the U.S. and in different countries.
"But, the big caveat is, we should not be complacent since the increased transmissibility of variant … omicron … might be overridden by the sheer volume of the number of cases that may be a reduced severity, but could still stress our hospital [systems]. Because a certain proportion of a large volume of cases – no matter what – are going to be severe," Fauci explained.