LONDON (Dispatches) – A virus expert has warned that 32,000 people in U.S. expecting to celebrate Christmas and New Year will have died of coronavirus before then, as experts told UK government that Omicron could cause between 25,000 and 75,000 deaths in England over the next five months without tougher Covid restrictions.
Dr Gregory Poland’s comments come as sequencing shows the new omicron variant of Covid-19 is already in half of all U.S. states, The Independent reported.
The epidemiologist for Mayo Clinics, who is among the top immunologists in the county, suggested that according to his calculations, more than 30,000 people in the U.S. would die of coronavirus before the end of the year.
“32,000 Americans who think they’re going to be alive to celebrate Christmas and New Years are, no pun intended, dead wrong,” Poland told MailOnline, adding, “Not one of them believes [it].”
“Everybody’s comforting themselves with the idea that omicron is less severe. It may well be but that is very, very, preliminary information that comes from one specific area of the world where Delta has not been as deadly as it has here,” he added.
“It fascinates me that a tiny little preliminary report like that makes its way around the world. Everybody fixes on that belief. And yet, look at the last year of work trying to get people immunized and they ignore it,” he added.
Omicron was first detected in Botswana on November 11, and identified in South Africa on November 14. The first U.S. case was recorded on December 1.
Meanwhile, scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) also warned that Omicron is likely to be the dominant coronavirus variant in the UK by the end of the month, The Guardian reported.
Even in the most optimistic scenario, projected infections could lead to a peak of more than 2,000 daily hospital admissions, with a total of 175,000 hospital admissions and 24,700 deaths between December 1 and April 30.
The scientists, who advise the government as part of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), used experimental data to look at how the transmission of Omicron might develop as the country heads into 2022 without more stringent restrictions beyond Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “plan B”.

Half a Billion Pushed
Into Poverty

Meanwhile, more than half a billion people globally were pushed into extreme poverty last year as they paid for health costs out of their own pockets during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization and the World Bank said on Sunday.
The pandemic disrupted health services globally and triggered the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, making it even more difficult for people to pay for healthcare, according to a joint statement from both the organizations.
“All governments must immediately resume and accelerate efforts to ensure every one of their citizens can access health services without fear of the financial consequences,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Tedros urged governments to increase their focus on health care systems and stay on course towards universal health coverage, which the WHO defines as everyone getting access to health services they need without financial hardship.