'We'll be in the throes of Omicron for a month': Ex-FDA commissioner says COVID will peak in two weeks

The Omicron variant is continuing to create a surge in new COVID-19 cases through the United States in the new year, with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warning that we will be in the throes of the new wave in infections for the next month before cases drop off - even as the death rate remains relatively low.

The country recorded its highest seven-day average number of cases on January 2, with 413,304 people testing positive for the virus over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. At the same time, on a seven-day average, there were 1,350 new deaths. That number is far lower than the seven-day average recorded at the peak of winter in January 2021, where the US averaged around 3,300 deaths.

Cases may continue to rise over the next few days due to a lag in reporting over the weekend, and on Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci told PIX 11 News: 'It is going to go higher.

'What we hope will happen is what we've seen in South Africa, you see a spike and then it turns around,' he said.

The country, which was one of the first in the world to fall victim to Omicron, hit its peak in the seven days leading up to December 17, when an average of 23,437 cases were recorded.

But by December 28, the number had plummeted by 38 percent to 14,390 cases.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, also said on Monday that he believes 'this is not going to last very long,' estimating 'we'll be in the throes of this for maybe a month.'

'Here in the northeast, I think you're going to see infections peak out within the next two weeks,' he claimed in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box. 'So hopefully, here in New York City does find a peak within the next two weeks.'

He said that London, which was struck by the Omicron wave several weeks before it came to New York City, 'has already peaked and is probably on the way down.' New York City saw 85,476 new cases reported in the state over the weekend, whereas London saw 19,951 on January 2.

Both Fauci and Gottlieb, as well as a number of other experts now say catching the highly-contagious Omicron variant could actually be beneficial to society, as it has been proven to be less virulent than other strains but could create herd immunity.

This comes after a study by Columbia University revealed that Omicron-fueled cases could peak to around 2.5 million by January 9 with others estimating the surge to go to 5.4 million.

Meanwhile, another covid variant has been found in France, according to scientists. The mutant strain has 46 mutations that are thought to make it both more vaccine-resistant and infectious than the original virus.

About 12 cases have been recorded so far near Marseille, with the first linked to travel to the African country Cameroon. But there is little sign that it is outcompeting the dominant Omicron variant, which now makes up more than 60 per cent of cases in France. It is yet to be spotted in other countries or labelled a variant under investigation by the World Health Organization.

In another interview with the Today Show's Hoda Kotb on Monday, former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control Richard Besser said he expects 'these next few weeks are going to be really rough in terms of numbers of new cases.'

Speaking to Danish TV 2, Tyra Grove Krause - the chief epidemiologist at Denmark's State Serum Institute - said a new study from the organisation found that the risk of hospitalisation from Omicron is half that seen with the Delta variant.

This, she said, has given Danish authorities hope that the Covid-19 pandemic in Denmark could be over in two months.

'I think we will have that in the next two months, and then I hope the infection will start to subside and we get our normal lives back,' she said on Monday.

Despite early fears that Omicron could prolong the pandemic due to its increased level of infection, Ms Krause said it actually could spell the end of the pandemic.

According to the study: 'Omicron is here to stay, and it will provide some massive spread of infection in the coming month. When it's over, we're in a better place than we were before.'

But while infection numbers in countries with the variant are soaring, the expert said that the highly infectious Omicron appears milder than the Delta variant, and therefore more people will be infected without having serious symptoms.

As a result, she said, this will provide a good level of immunity in the population.

Denmark has seen a spike in new cases in recent weeks, and on Sunday recorded its highest ever seven-day average infections, recording an average of 20,886 across the previous week, or 3,592.74 per million people - one of Europe's highest rates.

It reported its highest ever new infections on December 27 (41,035).

By comparison, the UK's seven-day average daily new confirmed Covid-19 cases per million people sits at 2,823.31 as on Monday, while in the United States, that number is 1,215.76 - lower than many countries in Europe.

Ms Krause stressed that there was still work to be done to beat the pandemic in the coming months, however.

'Omicron will peak at the end of January, and in February we will see declining infection pressure and a decreasing pressure on the health care system,' she said.

'But we have to make an effort in January, because it will be hard to get through.'

The epidemiologist said Danes should continue to follow the now well-known measures to help slow the spread, such as good hygiene, social distancing where possible, and staying at home when symptoms present themselves.

Omicron's increasing spread will continue to put pressure on Denmark's healthcare system, she said. 'This is definitely what will be the challenge in the future.'

Professor Lars Østergaard, chief physician at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital, also looked towards the end of the pandemic in comments made on January 1.

He said that while the coronavirus will not be characterised as a pandemic forever, it will likely never fully disappear.

I never think we'll ever wave goodbye to the corona,' he said.

'But we want such a good immunity in the population - partly because of new vaccines, partly because people have been infected - that we can handle it as another of the infections we know that come especially in the winter month.'

Ms Krause agreed, saying: 'In the long run, we are in a place where coronavirus is here, but where we have restrained it, and only the particularly vulnerable need to be vaccinated up to the next winter season.'

But, he said, 'this could be the path out of this pandemic - as this variant spreads around and infects more and more people.

'Hopefully, the protection you get from having had an Omicron variant will provide some protection from other variants,' he continued, noting: 'The key, I think, is focusing on global protection. We have done a terrible job at providing vaccines around the globe and as we've seen with Omicron, new variants can arise anywhere.

'So from an equity and justice standpoint, we need to do more - but in terms of our self interest and being protected against future variants we need to do a lot more to make vaccines available.'

As of Monday, 9.2 billion people worldwide have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, and as of Thursday, 73.3 percent of all Americans have received at least on dose and 62 percent are fully vaccinated.

But just 33.4 percent of all fully-vaccinated Americans have received a booster dose, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control, as federal health officials consider changing the definition of 'fully vaccinated' to include booster doses amid a surge in children being hospitalized with the virus.

A Danish health official has also said that the Omicron variant is bringing about the end of the pandemic, saying 'we will have our normal lives back in two months'.

Speaking to Danish TV 2, Tyra Grove Krause - the chief epidemiologist at Denmark's State Serum Institute - said a new study from the organization found that the risk of hospitalization from Omicron is half that seen with the Delta variant.

This, she said, has given Danish authorities hope that the Covid-19 pandemic in Denmark could be over in two months.

'I think we will have that in the next two months, and then I hope the infection will start to subside and we get our normal lives back,' she said on Monday.

Despite early fears that Omicron could prolong the pandemic due to its increased level of infection, Ms Krause said it actually could spell the end of the pandemic.

According to the study: 'Omicron is here to stay, and it will provide some massive spread of infection in the coming month. When it's over, we're in a better place than we were before.'

But while infection numbers in countries with the variant are soaring, the expert said that the highly infectious Omicron appears milder than the Delta variant, and therefore more people will be infected without having serious symptoms.

As a result, she said, this will provide a good level of immunity in the population.

Denmark has seen a spike in new cases in recent weeks, and on Sunday recorded its highest ever seven-day average infections, recording an average of 20,886 across the previous week, or 3,592.74 per one million people - one of Europe's highest rates.

It reported its highest ever new infections on December 27, with 41,035 new cases.

As of Monday, the United States saw 254,091 new cases with just 244 new deaths. That number is likely to be higher due to a lag in reporting over the weekend.

But other experts have said that society is going to have to live with COVID, with Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Public Health saying: 'Certainly COVID will be with us forever.

'We´re never going to be able to eradicate or eliminate COVID, so we have to identify our goals.'

At some point, the World Health Organization will determine when enough countries have tamped down their COVID-19 cases sufficiently - or at least, hospitalizations and deaths - to declare the pandemic officially over. Exactly what that threshold will be isn´t clear.

But even when that happens, some parts of the world still will struggle - especially low-income countries that lack enough vaccines or treatments - while others more easily transition to what scientists call an 'endemic' state.

They´re fuzzy distinctions, said infectious disease expert Stephen Kissler of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He defines the endemic period as reaching 'some sort of acceptable steady state' to deal with COVID-19.

The omicron crisis shows we´re not there yet but 'I do think we will reach a point where SARS-CoV-2 is endemic much like flu is endemic,' he said.

For comparison, COVID-19 has killed more than 800,000 Americans in two years while flu typically kills between 12,000 and 52,000 a year.

Exactly how much continuing COVID-19 illness and death the world will put up with is largely a social question, not a scientific one.

'We´re not going to get to a point where it´s 2019 again,' said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. 'We´ve got to get people to think about risk tolerance.'

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, is looking ahead to controlling the virus in a way 'that does not disrupt society, that does not disrupt the economy.'

In his interview with PIX 11 on Monday, Fauci said that if people comply with the CDC recommendations and get a booster shot 'we will get through this quicker.'

Another Covid variant has been found in France, according to scientists.

The mutant strain has 46 mutations that are thought to make it both more vaccine-resistant and infectious than the original virus.

Some 12 cases have been spotted so far near Marseille, with the first linked to travel to the African country Cameroon.

But there is little sign that it is outcompeting the dominant Omicron variant, which now makes up more than 60 per cent of cases in France.

The strain was discovered by academics based at the IHU Mediterranee Infection on December 10, but has not spread rapidly since.

It is yet to be spotted in other countries or labelled a variant under investigation by the World Health Organization.

Professor Philippe Colson, who heads up the unit that discovered the strain, said: 'We indeed have several cases of this new variant in the Marseille geographical area.'We named it "variant IHU". Two new genomes have just been submitted.'

The variant has been dubbed B.1.640.2 and its discovery was announced in a paper posted on medRxiv. This has not been published in an academic journal.

Scientists say the lineage is genetically different to B.1.640, which is thought to have emerged in the Democratic Republic of Congo in September.

Tests show the strain carries the E484K mutation that is thought to make it more resistant to vaccines.

It also has the N501Y mutation — first seen on the Alpha variant — that experts believe can make it more transmissible.

It is a distant relative of Omicron, which scientists say likely evolved from an older virus.

Omicron — or B.1.1.529 — carries around 50 mutations and appears to be better at infecting people who already have a level of immunity. But a growing body of research proves it is also much less likely to trigger severe disease.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10363971/How-pandemic-end-Omicron-clouds-forecasts-endgame.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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