Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Work and Pensions Committee hearing titled Next Steps: The Road front view for the COVID-19 Response, at the Dirksen Building on Thursday, November 4, 2021.
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At least 15 states have detected the omicron coronavirus variant, and the number is expected to grow, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr Rochelle Walensky told ABC News on Sunday.
“We know we have a few dozen cases and we’re monitoring them closely. And we’re hearing about more and more likely cases so that number is likely to go up,” Walensky said. on “This Week”.
The variant, discovered for the first time in South Africa, has several mutations in the mutated protein that allows the virus to enter the body, and some of those mutations can lead to increased resistance and transmission of resistance. body. Scientists are still gathering data on this virus and the effectiveness of current Covid-19 vaccines.
After being discovered in several other countries, the US reported first omicron case on December 1. While some patients had recently traveled to southern Africa, others had no travel history. That shows that community transmission is underway.
In an effort to prevent the virus from spreading to the US, officials initially restricted travel to non-US citizens from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he hoped that the ban could be lifted within a “reasonable amount of time”. physical.”
However, the majority of cases in the US are still caused by delta . variation.
“We have about 90 to 100,000 cases per day in the United States, and 99.9% of them are the delta variant,” says Walensky.
