Top U.S. health authorities have warned that the Omicron variant is so contagious that it is likely most people in the United States will be infected, The Guardian reported on Wednesday, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
The Omicron variant, which replaced Delta in less than a month, is now responsible for more than 98 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"I think it's hard to process what's actually happening right now, which is (that) most people are going to get Covid, all right?" the British newspaper quoted Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, as saying.
"What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function," Woodcock added.
"Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody," Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the White House, was quoted as saying.