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U.S. COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are comparatively low despite a surge in cases as the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said on Wednesday.

The current seven-day daily average of cases is up 60% over the previous week to about 240,400 per day, she said. The average daily hospitalization rate for the same period is up 14% to about 9,000 per day and deaths are down about 7% at 1,100 per day, Walensky told reporters at a White House briefing.

“In a few short weeks Omicron has rapidly increased across the country, and we expect will continue to circulate in the coming weeks. While cases have substantially increased from last week, hospitalizations and deaths remain comparatively low right now,” she said.

Early U.S. data suggests Omicron will have a lower hospitalization-to-case ratio than the Delta variant, top U.S. infectious disease Anthony Fauci said at the briefing, but COVID-19 vaccine boosters will be critical in tackling it.

“All indications point to a lesser severity of Omicron versus Delta,” he said. “Boosters are critical in getting our approach to Omicron to be optimal.”

Fauci said it was possible a second booster shot might be needed, but that it was not possible to know without first determining the durability of the protection offered by an initial booster, for which there is currently no data.

“Before we start talking about a fourth shot, it will be very important for us to determine the durability of protection, particularly against severe disease for the third shot booster of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J,” he said.

“Right now we don’t have that information. It is conceivable that in the future we might need an additional shot but right now we are hoping that we will get a greater degree of durability of protection from that booster shot.”

The government expects a contract for 500 million antigen tests, promised by President Joe Biden, to help address the surge in cases to be complete late next week, said White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients.

“The Department of Defense and HHS are executing (this) on an accelerated timeline,” he said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Alexandra Alper; Additional reporting by Caitlin Webber and Chris Gallagher, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Aurora Ellis)

Copyright 2021 Thomson/Reuters