Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Friday that she does not think the US has yet reached the peak of the Omicron surge.
Speaking on NBC’s “Today” and quoted by The Hill, Walensky said that she does not think the US is experiencing what South Africa saw when concluding it “may have passed the peak.”
“The way it has peaked in other countries — in South Africa, it has come down rapidly as well,” she said. “But I don’t believe we’ve seen that peak here in the United States.”
Walensky noted that COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are climbing at a slower rate than cases, but “we’re now starting to see the number of hospitalizations rise as well.”
On Wednesday, she said hospitalizations reached a seven-day average of about 14,800 per day in a 63 percent increase from the previous week. Deaths rose 5 percent to approximately 1,200 per day.
Walensky told NBC on Friday that hospitals across the country are filled with unvaccinated patients who are 17 times more likely to be admitted and 20 times more likely to die than boosted individuals.
“So there’s a lot we can do right now in this moment getting vaccinated, getting boosted,” she said. “We have 99 percent of our counties in high transmission. Wear your mask in public indoor settings.”
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)