Fauci: hospitalization figures a better guide to Omicron than case count

But government's top medical adviser warns public not to be fooled by data suggesting variant lacks severity of earlier variants

The US government's top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has joined a growing body of experts who say hospitalisation figures form a better guide to the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant than the traditional case-count of new infections.

Referring to the Omicron surge in the US as a tsunami", Fauci also cautioned the public not to be fooled by preliminary data suggesting the variant lacks the severity of earlier Covid-19 variants, such as Delta.