The rise and fall of Covid diagnoses has historically been shown as “waves,” but Walensky suggested the omicron surge in the U.S. may be visualized more as an “ice pick,” with a dramatic rise and fall in cases similar to South Africa, which has passed its omicron surge.

“I do think in places that we are seeing this really steep incline, that we may well see also a precipitous decline,” Walensky said during the briefing…

Walensky said that early evidence suggests that the omicron variant may help protect people from the delta variant. On the flip side, “we have an indication that if you had delta, you are susceptible to infection with omicron,” she said.

And would an omicron infection protect a person from omicron reinfection? The CDC is beginning studies to answer this question.