Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US top expert on infectious diseases, told CNN in an interview on Sunday that early indications of the severity of the Omicron COVID-19 variant are "a bit encouraging," though he stressed that more information was still needed.
"Omicron has a transmission advantage" in South Africa, where the variant was first reported, Fauci said, adding the country had a low level of cases before it saw "almost a vertical spike upwards, which is almost exclusively Omicron."