PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — COVID-19 numbers continue to rise, and the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warns of a difficult next few weeks and months ahead because of the omicron variant.
Right now, the U.S. is averaging nearly 126,000 cases a day, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Back on Nov. 1, the average was around 75,000.
It’s at about 8,000 in Pennsylvania, double what it was in early November.
This sharp rise is fueled by the delta variant, Fauci said on CNN, but omicron will quickly catch up.
“Right now in certain regions of the country, 50% of the isolates are omicron, which means it’s going to take over,” he said.
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The variant has a doubling time of two to three days.
“That means every person that gets infected now infects two more people,” explained John Wherry, director of the Penn Institute for Immunology. “Those two more people now infect two more people each. So, it becomes four, and eight, 16 — it expands exponentially very quickly.”
A concern is more and more hospitals getting overwhelmed. Omicron is becoming more and more reminiscent of March 2020, but Wherry said the big difference between then and now are the vaccines.
“Being vaccinated shortens the period of time that COVID disrupts your life,” he said. “It allows you to withstand it much better so you’re not ending up severely sick, you’re not as much of a risk to your loved ones.”
Wherry echoed what other public health officials are saying: Get vaccinated and boosted, mask up, and get tested — though, as we’ve seen, at-home rapid tests are difficult to get right now.