Anthony Fauci, the White House chief
medical advisor, said Sunday that travelling amid the omicron wave would present
an increased risk of infection across the world. Fauci also said people need
to be “prudent” if they plan to travel over the season.

Also Read: No need for different vaccines as booster shots work against Omicron: Fauci

“Clearly, when you travel, there is always
a risk of increased infection. That just goes with respiratory illnesses,”
Fauci told NBC anchor Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”

“But if people need to travel and want to
travel for the obvious family reasons during this holiday season, if you’re
vaccinated and you’re boosted and you take care when you go into congregate
settings like airports to make sure you continually wear your mask, you should
be OK,” he added. 

Also Read: UK says it could exceed 1 million omicron infections by end of December

Fauci warned that with the new omicron
variant “we are going to see breakthrough infections. There’s no doubt about
that”.

“The difference between a vaccinated and
boosted person who has an infection and someone who has an infection who’s
never been vaccinated, a major difference with regard to the risk of severity,”
he stressed.

Also Read: Omicron likely to be ‘not as severe’ as Delta variant: Anthony Fauci

‘Omicron variant is raging through the world’

Fauci also thinks the omicron variant has
an “extraordinary capability of spreading. It is just raging through the world,
really”. “And if you look, even here in the United States, you have
some regions that start off with a few percent of the isolates that are
positive now going up to 30, 40, in some places, 50 percent,” he added.

Experts, however, have said it’s too early
to tell whether a more severe disease is caused by the variant, which was first
detected by scientists in South Africa in late November.

Also Read: Anthony Fauci responds to perjury allegations, reminds Ted Cruz of January 6

But Fauci said he still believes the
variant will drive up hospitalizations due to the number of unvaccinated people
in the US.

“No matter how you look at it, Chuck, when you
have so many, many infections, even if it is less severe, that overcomes this
slight to moderate diminution in severity because our hospitals, if things look
like they’re looking now, in the next week or two are going to be very stressed
with people,” he said.

Also Read: Too soon for lockdowns in US: Anthony Fauci on Omicron scare

“Because again, we have so many people in
this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet been
vaccinated. And that’s going to be a real problem for stress on the hospital
system.”

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Currently, only 65.2 per cent of eligible
Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.