Federal health officials warned in a briefing on Tuesday that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading quickly in the U.S. and "could peak in a massive wave of infections as soon as January," The Washington Post reports, citing new modeling from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The variant's prevalence jumped "sevenfold in a single week," the Post reports, a pace that, if sustained, could impose newfound pressure on a health system already strained by the Delta variant. Pharmaceutical companies aren't in favor of creating an Omicron-specific vaccine, and believe that individuals with both vaccine doses and a booster shot are still well protected against severe illness and death, even with the new strain.
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