Omicron sweeps across nation — now 73% of U.S. COVID-19 cases

NEW YORK —  Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a sixfold increase in Omicron’s share of infections in just one week.

In much of the country, Omicron’s prevalence is even higher. It’s responsible for an estimated 90% of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. The national rate suggests that more than 650,000 Omicron infections occurred in the U.S. last week.

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Since the end of June, the Delta variant had been the main version causing U.S. infections. As recently as the end of November, more than 99.5% of coronaviruses were Delta, according to federal data.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the new numbers reflected the kind of growth seen in other countries.

“These numbers are stark, but they’re not surprising,” she said.

Scientists in Africa first sounded the alarm about Omicron less than a month ago and on Nov. 26 the World Health Organization designated it as a “variant of concern.” The mutant has since shown up in about 90 countries.

Much about the Omicron variant remains unknown, including whether it causes more or less severe illness. Early studies suggest the vaccinated will need a booster shot for the best chance at preventing Omicron infection but even without the extra dose, vaccination still should offer strong protection against severe illness and death.

“All of us have a date with Omicron,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If you’re going to interact with society, if you’re going to have any type of life, Omicron will be something you encounter, and the best way you can encounter this is to be fully vaccinated.”

Adalja said he was not surprised by the CDC data showing Omicron overtaking Delta in the U.S., given what was seen in South Africa, Britain and Denmark. He predicted spread over the holidays, including breakthrough infections among the vaccinated and serious complications among the unvaccinated that could stress hospitals already burdened by Delta.

Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said other countries had seen Omicron’s fast growth, but the U.S. data showed “a remarkable jump in such a short time.”

Topol also said it was unclear how much milder Omicron really is compared with other variants.

“That’s the big uncertainty now,” Topol said. “We have to count on it being a lot of hospitalizations and a lot of severe disease from Omicron.”

CDC’s estimates are based on thousands of coronavirus specimens collected each week through university and commercial laboratories and state and local health departments. Scientists analyze their genetic sequences to determine which versions of the COVID-19 viruses are most abundant.

In the week that ended Dec. 11, Omicron’s share of new infections in the U.S. increased to 2.9% from 0.4% the week before, the CDC previously reported.

But the CDC on Tuesday revised some of the earlier numbers after analyzing more specimens. The new numbers indicate that about 13% of the infections the week of Dec. 11 were Omicron, and not 3%, CDC officials said.

Though there remain a lot of new infections caused by the Delta variant, “I anticipate that over time that Delta will be crowded out by Omicron,” Walensky said.