Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, warned Thursday that omicron will become the dominant variant of the novel coronavirus in the United States "very soon."
"It has an extraordinary ability to transmit efficiently and spread," Fauci, the chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview on "Good Morning America."
"It has what we call a doubling time of about three days and if you do the math on that, if you have just a couple of percentage of the isolates being omicron, very soon it's going to be the dominant variant," he explained. "We've seen that in South Africa, we're seeing it in the U.K. and I'm absolutely certain that's what we're going to be seeing here relatively soon."
Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged Americans to "absolutely" get vaccinated against COVID-19, if they haven't already, and to also receive a booster shot when they become eligible.
"At this point, we don't believe you need an omicron-specific boost," he added. "We just need to get the boost with what you got originally for the primary vaccination."
Fauci talks importance of boosters as omicron variant grows in US
Dr. Anthony Fauci shares the latest information about the fast-growing omicron variant as COVID-19 cases continue to rise heading into the holidays.