Long queue to be tested for Covid-19 in Washington, December 29, 2021 (AFP / Eva HAMBACH)
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With some 265,000 new cases of Covid-19 recorded each day on average, the United States faced a record outbreak of infections on Wednesday, largely linked to the Omicron variant and fueling concern for the health system in the middle of the holidays. the end of the year.
However, the hospitalization curve was not currently following that of contamination, and health experts were encouraging in the face of an accumulation of data pointing to a lower severity of the disease caused by Omicron.
The seven-day average of daily cases in the country surpassed the previous peak recorded in the third wave in January 2021, which stood at nearly 252,000 cases, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University on Wednesday.
“The rapid increase in cases that we are seeing across the country is largely a reflection of the exceptionally transmissible Omicron variant,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Prevention and Control, told a press briefing on Wednesday. diseases (CDC).
Omicron is now the dominant variant in the United States and accounted for about 59% of new cases in the week ending December 25, according to the CDC.
A man is tested at a test site in Washington on December 29, 2021 (AFP / Eva HAMBACH)
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The curve of hospitalizations and deaths, however, remains “relatively” low for the moment, pointed out Ms. Walensky. “This could be due to the fact that hospitalizations tend to arrive with a two-week lag in cases, but also to preliminary indications (…) of less severe illness with Omicron,” she said. .
For the moment, around 9,000 new patients with Covid-19 are hospitalized daily in the United States, far from the 16,500 hospitalizations per day recorded in early January 2021, according to CDC data.
And more than 1,000 people die on average each day from Covid-19 today in the country – a year ago, the peak was around 3,400 daily deaths.
– “Less severity” –
Covid-19: global assessment (AFP /)
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“All indications point to a lower severity of Omicron compared to Delta,” said at the same press point Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House adviser on the health crisis.
The immunologist presented data from South Africa and the UK. However, it remains difficult to differentiate to what extent the improvement is linked to the properties of the virus itself or to the immunity acquired by the population through vaccination or a past infection, he stressed.
On the other hand, he also mentioned studies carried out on animals, in particular hamsters, showing that Omicron “infects and spreads badly in the lungs, and is less pathogenic than Delta”.
But beware: for the healthcare system, “the extremely high case volume could offset part of the impact of less serious illness,” Fauci warned. “And so we shouldn’t be complacent because the hospital system could still be under strain.”
Jeff Zients, coordinator of the fight against the pandemic at the White House, defended the measures taken by the government to organize a response to Omicron.
“We have helped more than 30 states and territories by deploying more than 2,100 federal personnel, thousands of ambulances, respirators and other essential supplies,” he said Wednesday.
But faced with a lack of available tests, the US authorities have been widely criticized since Christmas. Long queues have piled up all over the country in front of testing centers.
Asked about the behavior to adopt, in this context, for the Christmas Eve of December 31, Anthony Fauci estimated that vaccinated Americans could reunite “in family” with little risk.
People line up outside a Covid-19 testing site in Times Square in New York City on December 28, 2021 (AFP / Bryan R. Smith)
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On the other hand, “if your schedule is to go to a New Years party with 40-50 people (…) everyone kissing and wishing each other a happy new year, I would recommend that this year we do not that, ”he advised.
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, more than 820,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States since the start of the pandemic, the worst toll recorded worldwide.
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