WILMINGTON: The COVID-19 omicron variant is "just raging around the world," the White House's top medical adviser said on Sunday, and President Joe Biden is planning to give "a stark warning of what the winter will look" for unvaccinated Americans.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the county's leading infectious disease expert, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "the real problem" for the US 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 Biden some 10 months ago, when he suggested at a CNN town hall that the country would be back to normal by this Christmas.
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.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tried to defend the president's earlier promise in a separate interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
"The idea about hoping and having an aspiration to be independent of the virus after a period of time is understandable and reasonable," Fauci said.
"But the one thing that we know from, now, almost two years experience with this virus is that it is really very unpredictable."
The administration is expecting a series of breakthrough infections with the surge of holiday travelers.
Fauci said most people who have been vaccinated and gotten a booster should be OK if they take precautions such as continually wearing masks in crowded settings such as airports.
Biden plans to speak Tuesday on the status of the fight against COVID-19 and discuss government help for communities in need of assistance, White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted.
The president also will warn about the risks for those Americans who "choose to remain unvaccinated."
Fauci told NBC the president would again urge people to get the booster shot, highlight increased availability of testing, discuss "surge teams" for besieged hospitals and explain how important it is to provide vaccines for the rest of the world.
"The one thing that's very clear, and there's no doubt about this, is its extraordinary capability of spreading, its transmissibility capability. It is just, you know, raging through the world, really," Fauci said.
"And if you look even 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 per cent, 40 per cent, and some places 50 per cent."
Psaki's announcement Saturday on Twitter came after Vice President Kamala Harris said in a Los Angeles Times interview that the Biden administration "didn't see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not, upon whose advice and direction we have relied, didn't see Delta coming."
She added: "We didn't see Omicron coming. And that's the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants."
The vice president's words raised doubts as to the administration's strategy for addressing the pandemic.
Biden had effectively declared independence from the virus at a White House celebration on July Fourth to mark progress with vaccinations inside the United States, yet the global nature of the pandemic meant that the disease could evolve as others around the world waited for immunization.
Fauci told NBC he saw the variants coming and he thought Harris' statement "was taken a bit out of context," adding he believed she was referring to "the extraordinary number of mutations, particularly with omicron. No one had expected it that much but we were well prepared and expected that we were going to see variants."
Restaurants anxious as omicron, high food costs take toll
While restaurants in the US and United Kingdom are open without restrictions and often bustling, they are entering their second winter of the coronavirus pandemic anxious about what's ahead: They're squeezed by labour shortages and skyrocketing food costs and the omicron variant is looming.
"I'm extremely worried. I've never felt like we were out of the woods," said Caroline Glover, chef and owner of the restaurant Annette in the Denver suburb of Aurora.
The rapid spread of omicron already is pummeling the industry in Britain and elsewhere, with restaurants, hotels and pubs reporting cancellations at the busiest and most lucrative time of year.
Businesses urged the UK government to offer relief after officials warned people to think carefully about socialising.
Scotland and Wales have pledged millions of pounds for businesses, adding pressure for Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government to do the same in England.
"It's pretty devastating. For private hires, bigger tables of say eight to 16 people, those have pretty much disappeared. These are the bread and butter for restaurants at Christmastime," said Jeff Galvin, co-owner of Galvin Restaurants, a group of five upmarket venues in London.
Many businesses said hundreds of festive corporate lunch bookings vanished almost overnight as infections began to soar and Johnson announced tighter restrictions, including mandatory mask-wearing in most indoor spaces, though restaurants are open as usual.
Glover in Colorado worries about renewed restrictions if infections climb.
For now, business has returned, with her dining room back to full capacity, up from a cap of 50 per cent last year, and four greenhouses outside booked far in advance.
Similarly, diners have returned and business is strong for Amy Brandwein, who owns the Italian restaurant Centrolina and a small cafe, Piccolina, in Washington.
After her restaurants survived lockdowns with takeout and grocery offerings, "I could safely say we're back to 2019 levels," she said.
But staffing remains a challenge.
In a recent survey of 3,000 US restaurant operators, 77 per cent said they didn't have enough workers to meet demand, according to the National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group.
Many restaurant workers started new careers or went back to school.
Jada Sartor of Grand Rapids, Michigan, saw her wages rise from USD 10 per hour to USD 16 per hour this year as restaurants grew more desperate for workers, but she recently quit her serving job because she couldn't find affordable child care.
"The cost of living is just so high you can't afford to really live," she said.
Kristin Jonna, owner of restaurant and wine bar Vinology in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said she raised wages nearly 40 per cent to attract and retain her staff of 35.
It was a change that needed to happen in the service industry, she said.
But she can't hike menu prices enough to compensate.
"Everyone knows that beef is more expensive, but high-end, highly skilled labour is expensive, too," Jonna said.
"That is the very tricky part of our business right now."
Jonna said the restaurant is humming despite high COVID-19 caseloads in Michigan.
She has fewer large events scheduled, but the customers who are coming in are spending more.
US sales at restaurants and bars hit an estimated USD 73.7 billion in November, up 37 per cent from the same month last year, according to preliminary data from the US Census Bureau.
But that was partly due to higher menu prices as restaurants try to account for inflation.
Sara Lund, owner of Bodega and The Rest, a bar and restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah, said her ingredient costs rose between 15 per cent and 40 per cent this year.
"The margins on food are never going to be astronomical, even in good times," she said.
"But paying 40 per cent more for protein? I can't pass that along to the customer."
Diners know restaurants are struggling, and many say they have resumed eating out to help their favourite local spots.
Liz Cooper of Needham, Massachusetts, said she's comfortable dining indoors with her family of five, all of whom are vaccinated except for her 4-year-old daughter.
"If you like a restaurant and a small business you should get out there and support them," Cooper said.
"They might have to close, and then you'll be heartbroken that you can't get your favorite chicken parm or cannoli."
Steve Geffen, who owns four Chicago-area restaurants, including Once Upon a Grill, said he removed 30 per cent of the tables from his restaurants to ensure customers felt comfortable dining inside.
So far, it's working.
"They don't mind waiting longer, knowing they're not sitting on top of everybody else," he said.
But Jeanne Busch in Forest Park, Illinois, is sticking with occasional takeout.
"I am definitely not comfortable maskless indoors in a crowd," Busch said.
"As we head into winter and omicron continues its rampage, we expect mostly to be eating at home."
In Britain, omicron has already devastated restaurants and pubs.
Patrick Dardis, who heads the Young's chain of some 220 pubs, said he hoped officials would come up with a financial relief plan soon.
About 30 per cent of the chain's bookings cancelled last week.
"There are thousands of businesses, not just pubs, that could collapse in January if the current situation isn't partnered with proper financial support," he said.
UKHospitality, an industry trade group, urged tax relief, saying concerns about omicron have wiped out 2 billion pounds (USD 2.6 billion) in sales this month.
Restaurants also are clamouring for government support in the US, where the Restaurant Revitalisation Fund ran dry earlier this year after dispersing USD 28.6 billion to 100,000 applicants.
Sean Kennedy, executive vice president for public policy at the National Restaurant Association, said the industry needs at least USD 40 billion to fund the 200,000 applicants who didn't receive grants.
So far, Congress hasn't taken action.
It's harder for restaurants to explain what's happening now that their dining rooms are full and they're not on lockdown, Kennedy said.
"They think that we're fully packed and crushing it, but the answer is, we are barely getting by," he said.
Lindsay Mescher, who opened the Greenhouse Cafe in Lebanon, Ohio, in 2019, is frustrated that she never received a promised government grant.
She was approved in May, but demand was so high the fund was exhausted before she received any money.
She took out loans to keep her staff of eight employed while offering only carryout for the first 16 months of the pandemic.
The cafe reopened to diners this year and had a busy summer and fall, but Mescher is still struggling.
She used to pay USD 165.77 for a case of 400 takeout salad bowls, for example; now they cost USD 246.75.
"The funds would have guaranteed survival for us," Mescher said.
"It's extremely unfair that some restaurants got relief and some didn't."