'US scientists saw COVID variants coming': Dr Fauci contradicts VP Kamala Harris

White House medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci, on Sunday, revealed that health officials in the US had expected new COVID variants to arise, but did not specifically foresee such numbers of mutations in a single strain like Omicron. He further explained that the SARS-CoV-2 was expected to mutate given the frequent replications happening in society. Notably, Fauci had been an adamant supporter of face masks and has even attracted former President Trump’s ire after he questioned his complacency.

"We definitely saw variants coming. What was not anticipated was the extent of the mutations in the amino acid substitutions in omicron, which was unprecedented,” Fauci was quoted as saying by Fox News. 

"When you have so much replication going on in the community, to give a virus enough opportunity to replicate, you know it’s ultimately going to mutate, and sometimes those mutations wind up a new variant. That’s what happened with delta, certainly, that’s what happened with omicron,” he further explained. 

Fauci's statements, however, came in contrast to that of Vice President Kamala Harris, who had on Saturday, said that most scientists in the country had not seen the Delta and the Omicron variant coming. “And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants," she said.

COVID-19 in the US 

Despite a robust vaccination program, the US continues to remain the most affected country in the world reporting over 51,765,714 cases and 827,323 fatalities. In a statement, CDC has warned that “COVID-19 tends to be milder in children compared with adults, but it can make children very sick and lead to hospitalisation or even death." Meanwhile, many countries including Israel have imposed a complete ban on flights to and from the US. 

Omicron suspected to be more transmissible

The newly discovered COVID-19 variant, Omicron, suspected to be more lethal and transmissible, has triggered panic waves across the world. Several countries have imposed travel restrictions on nations where the variant has been detected and almost every country has amped up precautionary measures against the new variant of coronavirus. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), the Omicron strain has been reported in 89 countries as of now. 

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