Fauci: Quarantine duration may be revisited

A new year may have rolled in, but the Omicron-induced flight cancellations continued on Sunday, while Dr Anthony Fauci added a potential new wrinkle to the travel situation when he said Sunday that recent changes to quarantine policy may be revisited.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon be coming out with a clarification on whether people with a positive coronavirus test should test negative to leave isolation, after questions last week over guidance that would let people leave after five days without symptoms as opposed to 10 days.

The current guidance does not require testing to confirm that a person is no longer infectious before they go back to work or socialize, causing some experts to raise questions.

"There has been some concern about why we don't ask people at that five-day period to get tested. That is something that is now under consideration," Fauci told ABC News on Sunday. "I think we're going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the CDC."

Fauci's latest comments caused some consternation on social media, particularly because he said there was "pushback" over the shortened quarantine period.

"So glad they are following the science on this... oh wait.. they're caving to media pressure. That always turns out well," tweeted "Chuck and Julie".

Rook0914 wrote, "I mean … Come on already (this coming from someone who supports Fauci for the most part)."

More than 2,500 US flights and more than 4,100 worldwide were grounded Sunday, according to tracking service FlightAware.

That followed Saturday's cancellations of more than 2,700 US flights, and more than 4,700 worldwide.

US airline cabin crew, pilots and support staff were reluctant to work overtime during the holidays, despite offers of financial incentives. Many feared contracting the coronavirus and did not welcome the prospect of dealing with unruly passengers, some airline unions said.

Transportation agencies across the United States also have suspended or reduced services due to coronavirus-related staff shortages.

Fauci said there was still a danger of an increase in hospitalization due to a large number of coronavirus cases even as early data suggest the Omicron variant is less severe.

"The only difficulty is that if you have so many cases, even if the rate of hospitalization is lower with Omicron than it is with Delta, there is still the danger that you will have a surging of hospitalizations that might stress the healthcare system," Fauci said in an interview on Sunday with CNN.

US authorities registered at least 346,869 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, according to a Reuters tally. The US death toll attributed to COVID-19 rose by 377 to 828,562.

The Omicron variant was estimated to be 58.6 percent of the coronavirus variants circulating in the United States as of Dec 25, according to the CDC.

"There will certainly be a lot more cases because this is a much more transmissible virus than Delta is," Fauci said on CNN.

However, "It looks, in fact, that it (Omicron) might be less severe, at least from data that we've gathered from South Africa, from the UK and even some from preliminary data from here in the United States," he said.

"One of the things that we hope for is that this thing will peak after a period of a few weeks and turn around," Fauci said. He expressed hope that by February or March, omicron could fall to a low-enough level "that it doesn't disrupt our society, our economy, our way of life".

Journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted: "Even Dr. Fauci is saying publicly that "all indications point to a lesser severity of Omicron" -- *all indications* -- yet if you point this out, those addicted to lockdowns and governments restrictions will react with rage and even fear. It's bizarre."

The US could reach the peak by Jan 9, which would be about 2.5 million cases to 5.4 million cases per week, according to Columbia University researchers, The New York Times reported.

"We are realizing right now monitoring the data that the peak is going to come much faster. My guess is it will happen before mid-January," Ali Mokdad, a public health researcher at the University of Washington, told the Times.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday that as COVID-19 cases rise, his "next move" will be to decide whether to mandate booster shots for municipal workers.

"We're going to examine the numbers. If we feel we have to get to a place of making that mandatory, we want to do that," he said on ABC's This Week.

A mandate for city workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine has been in effect since November.

The latest daily figures showed 49,724 new confirmed cases in the city on Friday. That number was more than half the total statewide, a record 85,476.

Hospitalizations in the city reached 4,326, "well above last winter's peak", Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine tweeted.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.