CDC significantly reduces estimate of omicron prevalence in US

The CDC significantly reduced its estimate for how prevalent the omicron variant of COVID-19 is in the United States on Tuesday, saying that the new variant was only responsible for 22.5% of new cases in the week that ended Dec. 18, not the alarming 73.2% that it had originally estimated last week. 

For the week ending Dec. 25, the agency says omicron accounted for 58.6% of all new cases.

Jasmine Reed, a spokesperson for the CDC, noted that there was "a wide predictive interval posted in last week’s chart," and the downward revision was partly due to the "speed at which Omicron was increasing."

"CDC’s models have a range, and… we’re still seeing steady increase in the proportion of Omicron," Reed told Fox News Digital. "In some regions in the country, Omicron accounts for ~ 90% or more of cases."