COVID-19: January will be a 'really hard month' as Omicron fuels infections, expert warns

As the United States hit the seven-day average of 2,54,496 new COVID-19 cases driven by the highly mutated and complex Omicron variant, shattering the previous record of 251,989 daily cases, reported back in January when SARS-CoV-2 hit, health experts warned of tough and dire months ahead as the new strain spreads. Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told CNN that January is going to be “a really, really hard month”. He then learned that people should “just brace themselves for a month where lots of people are going to get infected.” “I think we’re going to see half a million cases a day — easy — sometime over the next week to 10 days,” medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told the network. 

Wear N95 masks, stay away from parties this year, vaccinated people will end up getting 'pretty sick': Medical experts

Dr. Jha warns that while vaccinated and boosted who may contract the COVID-19 infection by contracting the highly complex Omicron, it is more likely that they won’t get severe illness. He then cautioned the unvaccinated, stressing that this won’t be the case with the unvaccinated who will drive the figures on the caseload of infection that might pile up in January.

“A lot of people who have not gotten a vaccine are going to end up getting pretty sick, and it’s going to be pretty disruptive,” Jha said. “My hope is as we get into February and certainly by the time we get into March, infection numbers will come way down, and it’ll also start getting (into) spring, and the weather will start getting better. And that will also help.”

The medical expert insisted that in order to protect themselves from B.1.1.529 strain people must immediately get vaccinated and boosted and adhere to strict health precautionary measures in public. “I would urge people to wear a higher quality mask any time they’re in a place with lots of people and they’re going to be indoors for an extended period of time,” Jha said in his televised remarks. He recommended a surgical mask over the cloth masks for a quick trip to a grocery store which he said may be empty. But for crowded spaces, Dr. Jha recommends a well-fitting N95 or KF94 mask. 

US top infectious diseases expert and White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci meanwhile told the network that this New Year, people must avoid large parties, especially where they don’t know the vaccination status of all guests. “When you are talking about a New Year’s Eve party where you have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of the vaccination, I would recommend strongly: Stay away from that this year,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Fauci said. “There will be other years to do that. But not this year.”