Dr. Fauci Warns New Omicron Variant Is Coming For US, Calls For Revved Up COVID Protocols

Omicron, a new coronavirus variant, has shown up in a handful of countries over the past week, and Dr. Fauci believes it won’t take long before it shows up in the U.S.

During an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Fauci told George Stephanopoulos the new variant's arrival is “inevitable.”

"We all know when you have a virus that has already gone to multiple countries, inevitably it will be here,” Fauci said. “The question is, will we be prepared for it?”

To prepare for the Omicron variant, Fauci has suggested that COVID-19 protocols should be amped up.

“The preparation that we have ongoing, for what we're doing now with the Delta variant, just needs to be revved up,” Fauci said.

“If and when — and it is going to be when — it comes here, hopefully, we will be ready for it by enhancing our capabilities via the vaccine, masking, all the things that we do and should be doing,” he added.

The Omicron variant, which is named after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet, was first detected last week in Botswana, South Africa, and has also shown up in Germany, Belgium and Hong Kong.

Fauci believes that the Omicron variant “appears to be” just as transmittable as the Delta variant, and other variants.

"It has a bunch of mutations," Fauci said. He added that there are "a disturbingly large number of mutations in the spike protein, which is the business end of the virus."

Other preparations in place to properly tackle the Omicron variant include President Joe Biden’s announcement on Friday to ban travel to the U.S. from South Africa, and several other countries, where transmission has been classified as high.

Fauci was asked by Stephanopoulos if he thinks that the travel ban will make a difference.

“It will slow things down,” Fauci said.

"Travel bans, when you have a highly transmissible virus, never completely ... prevent it from coming into the country. No way that's going to happen, but what you can do is you can delay it enough to get us better prepared. And that's the thing that people need to understand,” he said.