COVID-19 Update

WaPo: (freebie)

Don’t count on omicron ending the pandemic, Fauci says

Top U.S. health officials are urging caution amid reports of coronavirus cases peaking in some areas and speculation that the omicron variant could be a pandemic killer.

“It is an open question whether it will be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for,” Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said Monday during a virtual panel at the Davos Agenda.

“I would hope that that’s the case. But that would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response of the prior variant,” he said. Even then, he added, covid-19 would likely remain part of the world as an endemic disease.

Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy expressed a similar note of caution Sunday on CNN, saying that despite apparent omicron peaks in pockets of the Northeast, much of the country isn’t there yet. “We shouldn’t expect a national peak in the next coming days,” he said. “The next few weeks will be tough.”

Meanwhile, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla predicted that “we will soon be able to resume a normal life,” given pandemic mitigation measures including tests and vaccines. But he also said that doesn’t mean an end to the coronavirus. “We’ve had so many surprises since the start of the pandemic,” he said in an interview published Sunday in the French newspaper Le Figaro. “We will probably have to live for years with a virus that’s very difficult to eradicate.”

Here’s what to know

• With the Winter Olympics just weeks away, China announced that tickets will no longer be sold to the general public, as Beijing reported its first omicron case.
• Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is one of the latest high-ranking U.S. officials to test positive for the coronavirus.
• False negative results from rapid tests have sowed confusion, frustration and heartache among some people who fear they may have infected others.