*Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to “stay away” from large New Year’s Eve gatherings amid the rise in the omicron variant.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that omicron is highly transmissible but less severe than the delta strain of the coronavirus.
“All indications point to a lesser severity of omicron versus delta,” said Fauci on CNN Monday. But “we should not become complacent,” he noted.
“I have been telling people consistently that if you’re vaccinated and boosted, you can have a family setting in the home with family and relatives,” he said. “But when you’re talking about a New Year’s Eve party — we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of their vaccination — I would recommend strongly stay away from that this year.”
READ MORE: 2 Major Airlines (United & Delta) Cancel Holiday Flights As Omicron Cases Hit Crews | VIDEO
As reported by the New York Post, the US had a record-breaking 441,000 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, according to CDC data.
“The risk of severe disease from any circulating variant, including Omicron is much, much higher for the unvaccinated,” Fauci added. “And so, adults and children who are eligible, get vaccinated, and vaccinated people, get boosted when eligible.”
Fauci said “the pattern and disparity between cases and hospitalization strongly suggest that there will be a lower hospitalization-to-case ratio when the situation becomes more clear.”
Dr. Fauci predicts that the Omicron variant will start to wane in the US by the end of January.
“I would imagine, given the size of our country and the diversity of vaccination versus not vaccination, that it likely will be more than a couple of weeks, probably by the end of January, I would think,” Fauci said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
Watch Fauci’s CNN interview below.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says he recommends that people “stay away” from large New Year’s Eve gatherings where they don’t know the vaccination status of guests.
“There will be other years to do that, but not this year,” he says.https://t.co/X6u5qGcrbn pic.twitter.com/5eaEpVfWhd
— New Day (@NewDay) December 27, 2021
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