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Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for Covid-19, sounded cautiously optimistic on Sunday that the current Omicron wave was peaking nationally in the United States and that the coronavirus cases could fall to manageable levels in the coming months.
“What we would hope,” Dr. Fauci said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” “is that, as we get into the next weeks to month or so, we’ll see throughout the entire country the level of infection get to below what I call that area of control.”
That did not mean eradicating the virus, Dr. Fauci said. Infections will continue. “They’re there but they don’t disrupt society,” he said. “That’s the best case scenario.”
Coronavirus cases in the United States by region
This chart shows how reported cases per capita have changed in different parts of the country. The state with the highest recent cases per capita is shown.
Similar to rapid rises and then declines in Omicron cases in South Africa and Britain, new cases in the U.S. are now dropping in the Northeast and upper Midwest. “There are still some states in the Southern states and Western states that continue to go up,” Dr. Fauci said, “but if the pattern follows the trend that we’re seeing in other places such as the Northeast, I believe that you will start to see a turnaround throughout the entire country.”
As of Saturday, an average of more than 705,700 new cases were being identified every day, an increase of 8 percent over the last two weeks, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations nationwide have exceeded 159,500 each day over the past week, an increase of around 25 percent. Average new deaths are now 2,152 a day, up 41 percent.
“There may be a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalizations in those areas of the country that have not been fully vaccinated or have not gotten boosted,” Dr. Fauci said. Hospitals in several parts of the country have been strained after multiple surges and staffing shortages.
How cases, hospitalizations and deaths are trending in the U.S.
This chart shows how three key metrics compare to the corresponding peak per capita level reached nationwide last winter.
- Cases
- Deaths
of last winter’s peak
About this data
Sources: State and local health agencies (cases, deaths); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hospitalizations).
He advised that remaining ready for the possibility of what he called “the worst-case scenario” would be wise. “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but we have to be prepared,” he said, describing that situation as “we get yet again another variant that has characteristics that would be problematic, like a high degree of transmissibility or a high degree of virulence.”
But overall, he said, “things are looking good. We don’t want to get overconfident but they look like they’re going in the right direction right now.”
Asked about possible fourth shots for Americans, Dr. Fauci said it was too early to know the durability of protection from the initial round of boosters. On Friday, data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine boosters were keeping infected Americans who had all three doses out of hospitals.
Dr. Fauci also said that children wearing masks at school helped limit spread of Covid-19, as the Biden administration has urged schools to stay open for in-person instruction.