Fauci says omicron variant is `just raging around the world'

President Biden plans to speak on December 21 on the status of the fight against COVID-19 and discuss government help for communities in need of assistance

The omicron variant is “just raging around the world,” the White House's top medical adviser said on December 19 as President Joe Biden prepares to issue “a stark warning of what the winter will look like” for unvaccinated Americans.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the real problem” for the U.S. hospital system is that “we have so many people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet been vaccinated.”

The prospect of a winter chilled by a wave of coronavirus infections is a severe reversal from the optimism projected by Mr. Biden some 10 months ago, when he suggested at a CNN town hall that the country would essentially be back to normal by this Christmas. Mr. Biden has been careful not to overpromise, yet confidence in the country has been battered by an unrelenting wave of COVID-19 mutations and variations that have left many Americans emotionally exhausted, dispirited and worried about infections.