A Staggering Number Of Americans Could Die From COVID Before Christmas And New Year’s

As many as 32,000 people could die of COVID-19 before they get the chance to celebrate Christmas or New Year’s Day, according to one health expert.

Dr. Gregory Poland, an epidemiologist for the Mayo Clinic, made the prediction as the first death of the Omicron variant was confirmed in the U.K. on Monday.

Poland, who is among the top immunologists in the U.S., told the Daily Mail that his calculations suggest that more than 30,000 people would die before the end of the year from the coronavirus.

He told the news outlet, “32,000 Americans who think they’re going to be alive to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s are, no pun intended, dead wrong. Not one of them believes [it].

“Everybody’s comforting themselves with the idea that Omicron is less severe. It may well be, but that is very, very preliminary information that comes from one specific area of the world where Delta has not been as deadly as it has here.”

Preliminary data suggest that symptoms of the Omicron variant are “mild,” but there is still much unknown about the virus strain.

“It fascinates me that a tiny little preliminary report like that makes its way around the world. Everybody fixes on that belief. And yet, look at the last year of work trying to get people immunized, and they ignore it,” Poland told the Daily Mail.

The Omicron variant was first detected in South Africa and was deemed a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization on Nov. 26.

The first case in the U.S. was confirmed on Dec. 1 in San Francisco. It has since been identified in at least 25 states, with more than 140 cases being reported in the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told the Associated Press last week that the majority of Omicron cases were among vaccinated people who had traveled internationally.

The nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN early data on Omicron is “a bit encouraging.” But Fauci warned that “it’s too early to make any definitive statements about it. Thus far it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it.”

The Delta variant still makes up more than 99% of all COVID cases, The Independent reported.