'We have about 90 to 100,000 cases a day right now in the United States, and 99.9 percent of them are the Delta variant,' Walensky said.
Little is still known about the Omicron variant, but early data has suggested that it is at least twice as transmissible as Delta and may be more effective at evading immunity due to its high level of mutations.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Sunday that Omicron cases are likely to rise as the U.S. continues to battle the Delta variant. Here, Walensky speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2021, in Washington, D.C."We know we have several dozen cases and we're following them closely and we are every day hearing about more and more probably cases so that number is likely to rise," Walensky said Sunday.
"We know it has many mutations, more mutations than prior variants. Many of those mutations have been associated with more transmissible variants, with evasion of some of our therapeutics, and potentially evasion of some of our immunity, and that's what we're watching really carefully," she added. The more mutations a single variant has, the more successful it could be at bypassing levels of natural or vaccine immunity. Because of this, Walensky stressed that getting vaccinated and receiving a booster shot is"critically important" to addressing the variant early on.
"Right now we're really pushing to get more people vaccinated and more people boosted to really boost that immunity in every single individual," Walensky said. The CDC director added that researchers are"hopeful" that current vaccines will work to prevent severe disease and keep people out of the hospital.
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