Americans who have tested positive for COVID-19 but have no symptoms are advised by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to isolate for five days and then wear a mask for another five days when around others.

But they could soon be asked to also receive a negative antigen test before ending their isolation, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert appeared on national news programs over the weekend, saying that the CDC is considering adding the extra safeguard after getting some “pushback” on its Dec. 27 guidance that shortened isolation times.

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“There has been some concern about why we don’t ask people at that five-day period to get tested,” Fauci said. “Looking at it again, there may be an option in that, that testing could be a part of that, and I think we’re going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the CDC.”

The Omicron variant is now surging across the country, with about 400,000 new cases daily and increased hospitalisations.

“We are definitely in the middle of a very severe surge and uptick in cases,” Fauci said. “The acceleration of cases that we’ve seen is really unprecedented, gone well beyond anything we’ve seen before.”

A “fair number” of unvaccinated Americans “are going to get severe disease,” Fauci said, even with accumulating evidence that Omicron may still lead to less severe illness for many of them.

Fauci expressed concern that the variant is overwhelming the health care system and causing a “major disruption” in other essential services.

Among the evidence of that is the grounding more than 2,500 U.S. flights on Sunday and 4,100 worldwide due to the pandemic and wintry weather.

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