Dr. Anthony Fauci delivered promising news about the Omicron variant on Wednesday and said he predicts most states will be past their peak by mid-February. He also noted that there is evidence that parts of New York and New Jersey have already peaked or are about to turn the corner. Despite the positive news, CDC forecast models suggest that U.S. death totals will likely continue to increase over the next four weeks.
The models predict about 32,000 more Americans could die from COVID-19 over just the next two weeks and say that, by February 12, about 931,000 total lives could be lost in the U.S. to the virus.
The announcement comes as the new White House website offering free COVID-19 tests was visited over 27 million times since launching on Tuesday. It is unknown how many households ordered tests at this time. In addition, the Biden administration announced it will make 400 million non-surgical N95 masks available for free at tens of thousands of pharmacies and community health centers. An official expects the program “fully up and running” by early February.
Source-ABC
