It accounts for 50 percent of coronavirus cases in parts of the country, which meant it would almost certainly take over as the dominant variant in the United States, he added. “The big question is, are those million cases going to be sick enough to need health care and especially hospitalization?” Collins said. Health officials have continued to urge the unvaccinated to get their shots and those who have received only two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines to get booster doses. Vaccines cannot be the only layer of protection against the omicron variant, Fauci said, but defeating the pandemic would not be possible without them. Public health experts are bracing for a winter surge of cases driven by the omicron variant, which can evade some protection conferred by vaccinations and prior infections, as well as cases linked to the delta variant.
