Biden warns of ?winter of severe illness and death? for those unvaccinated against Covid

Joe Biden on Thursday warned of "a winter of severe illness and death" for those not vaccinated against Covid-19, amid a wave of Delta infections and as new Omicron cases are beginning to surge in America.

The US president spoke as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned the Omicron variant could peak as early as January and states are scrambling to prepare for overloaded hospitals.

The US has passed 800,000 coronavirus deaths, including one in 100 Americans over the age of 65.

After a briefing on the pandemic from advisers on Thursday afternoon, Biden said Omicron is "now spreading and it's going to increase".

"For the unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death," he said, urging Americans to get vaccinated and get their boosters as soon as possible.

The Omicron variant accounted for nearly 3% of Covid cases in the US as of Saturday - up from only 0.4% the week before, according to data from the CDC. The variant is expected to continue rising rapidly, based on the experiences of other countries and could be dominant within weeks.

"I suspect that those numbers are going to shoot up dramatically in the next couple of weeks," Céline Gounder, infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at New York University and Bellevue Hospital, told reporters on Wednesday. She expects an Omicron wave to peak in late January and then come down sometime in February.