US HEALTH OFFICIALS say that while the Omicron variant of coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than Delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospital admissions.

President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN’s State Of The Union that scientists need more information before drawing conclusion’s about Omicron’s severity.

Reports from South Africa, where it emerged and is becoming the dominant strain, suggest that hospital admission rates have not increased alarmingly.

“Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it,” Dr Fauci said.

“But we have really got to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or it really doesn’t cause any severe illness, comparable to Delta.”

Fauci said the Biden administration is considering lifting travel restrictions against non-citizens entering the United States from several African countries.

They were imposed as the Omicron variant exploded in the region, but UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has blasted such measures as “travel apartheid”.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to lift that ban in a quite reasonable period of time,” Dr Fauci said. “We all feel very badly about the hardship that has been put on not only on South Africa but the other African countries.”

Omicron had been detected in about a third of US states by Sunday, including in the Northeast, the South, the Great Plains and the West Coast. Wisconsin and Missouri were among the latest states to confirm cases.

But Delta remains the dominant variant, making up more than 99% of cases and driving a surge of hospital admissions in the north.

Even if Omicron proves less dangerous than Delta, it remains problematic, World Health Organisation epidemiologist Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said.

“Even if we have a large number of cases that are mild, some of those individuals will need hospitalisations,” she said.

“They will need to go into ICU and some people will die. We don’t want to see that happen on top of an already difficult situation with Delta circulating globally.”

Two years into the outbreak, Covid-19 has killed more than 780,000 Americans, and deaths are running at about 860 per day.

More than 6,600 new hospital admissions are being reported daily, according to tracking data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.