U.S. could see 1 million cases per day, warns departing NIH director Francis Collins

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/19/1065575540/nih-director-francis-collins-omicron

After spending more than 12 years as director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins is retiring this weekend. But he's no less worried about the public health agency's latest pandemic curveball.

As the omicron variant threatens record-breaking rates of infections in the U.S., Collins departs with a warning. If Americans don't take COVID-19 seriously, the country could see 1 million daily infections, he said.

"We cannot afford to let down our guard," Collins told NPR's Scott Detrow in an interview with Weekend Edition.

"I know people are tired of this," he said, acknowledging Americans' fatigue of having weathered almost two pandemic-stunted years. "I'm tired of it too, believe me. But the virus is not tired of us. It's having a great old time changing its shape every couple of months, coming up with new variants and figuring out ways to be even more contagious."

Early data shows that while omicron has the ability to easily evade immune protection and booster shots, those infected may be less likely to experience severe disease and hospitalization.

*snip*

[Doodley]

1. We are fast approaching 1/6th of USA population infected (excludes untested). That could go to 1/3rd