soon be our dominant variant. 80% of covid cases tested are now the omicron variant. the surge forcing a wave of cancellations. the nfl postponing games after a cluster of outbreaks. the rockettes canceling the rest of their season. there are growing concerns about this week s holiday travel. the flights are full. the lobby is full. all the planes are full. where does that leave us heading into the holidays? well, not in a good place. the cdc predicts covid cases could spike this week by 55%, up to 1.3 million infections by christmas day. during the first week of january, deaths could rise to up to 15,600 over seven days. for the unvaccinated, you re looking at a winter of severe illness and death, for yourself, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm. experts say those who have had booster shots are largely protected from severe illness, but hospitalizations are up 20% over the past two weeks. many hospitals nearing capacity.
of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, dr. anthony fauci. dr. fauci, welcome back to meet the press. thank you. let me start with the issue of omicron in this sense. on friday you suggested that it might be less severe. we ve seen a lot of a new study out of the uk that seems to be perhaps sending a mixed signal. what can you share with us this morning on where omicron is and how much of a threat it is? well, the one thing that s very clear, and there s no doubt about this, is its extraordinary ability of spreading its transmissibility capability. it s raging through the world really. if you look here in the united states, you have some regions that start off with a few percent of the isolates that are positive, now going up to 30,
omicron. that s a doubling time of anywhere from two to three days. when you have a doubling time that s that short a period, pretty soon that isolate is going to take over. i want to ask you to react to one thing. the vice president said in an interview on friday, we didn t see delta coming. i think most scientists did not, upon whose advice and direction we ve relied. we didn t see delta coming, didn t see omicron coming. and that s the nature of what this awful virus has been, as it turns out has mutations and variants. dr. fauci, perhaps nobody could have seen the specifics of delta and omicron, but did you not see variants coming, or did you? yeah, i did. and i think that the vice president s statement was taken a bit out of context. i believe she was referring to the fact that the extraordinary number of mutations and amino acid substitutions, particularly with omicron, nobody had expected it that much.
welcome back. we re glad to see our panelists, although, we re back in our remote locations. i m in a remote location because i ve come into close contact with someone who tested positive in the last 48 hours in my household. also with us, pbs newshour chief correspondent amna nawaz. phil rucker from the washington post, former democratic congresswoman donna edwards, and john podhoretz, editor of the commentary. we have a lot to get to. amna, i m going to begin with you. it already was arguably a deflating political end for the biden administration, and an explanation this morning from joe manchin saying he s done with build back better. now we have omicron. when you think about the first six weeks of 2022, i don t know how the biden administration focuses on anything else.
obviously people who are not vaccinated clearly need to get vaccinated now more than ever. well, let s talk about what the definition of fully vaccinated is. number one, should we expect that definition to change? i know that s not your decision. i assume that s a cdc decision. but let me ask you this, if you re advising a private company that does have a vaccine mandate or a vaccine requirement, would you tell them that they should make boosters part of the requirement? you know, i would tell them if they want their enterprise, their place of employment optimally protected, you should get boosted. as you said, there is this technicality of a definition for requirement purposes. if someone comes to me and says what is the best thing i could do, i would tell them to get people boosted, no doubt about that, particularly in the environment of omicron. the data are very clear about