Dr. Francis Collins, who is retiring today as the director of the National Institutes of Health stated that he doesn’t believe in absolute terms if the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was more dangerous than the Delta predecessor.
“I’m not absolutely convinced that the evidence says that Omicron is more dangerous than Delta was, but we got to watch that closely.“
He made the revelation in an interview on “Face the Nation”.
According to a transcript of the interview gotten from CBS News, the retiring director also said it was possible that the high number of kids being brought to/admitted in hospitals in South Africa, where Omicron was first dedicated, was only a precautionary measure by parents.
“I was on the phone for an hour and a half yesterday with the South African public health people looking at some of that data. You know, it’s not absolutely clear what’s going on there. It’s also possible that because people are really worried about kids, they’re more likely to get put in the hospital in South Africa just as a precaution“
Dr. Francis Collins’s interview with Margaret Brennan is coming after he said the United States could see a million Omicron cases per day. However, he also added that the question remains whether the infected will be really sick to require serious health care and hospitalization.