NY Post
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has drastically reduced its estimate of Omicron cases in the US, saying the variant accounted for about 59 percent of COVID-19 infections as of Christmas Day — a massive drop from the 73 percent previously reported. The CDC also significantly lowered its estimate for the week before Christmas, saying that the variant accounted for just 22.5 percent of all infections as of Dec. 18. The public health agency previously estimated that Omicron accounted for 73.2 percent of cases that week. This could mean that the Delta strain could actually be behind many of the current COVID-19 hospitalizations, former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb said. “Setting aside the question of how the initial estimate was so inaccurate, if CDC’s new estimate of #Omicron prevalence is precise then it suggests that a good portion of the current hospitalizations we’re seeing from Covid may still be driven by Delta infections,” Gottlieb wrote on Twitter. The CDC blamed the disparity on the rate at which the highly transmissible variant spreads.
