Donald Trump said Wednesday that people unvaccinated against coronavirus are the ones getting 'very sick' as he pushed back against conservative Candace Owens by claiming all Americans should get the jab while he again took credit for its creation.

'I came up with a vaccine – with three vaccines,' Trump told the Daily Wire host, referring to the development of the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines while he was still president. 'All are very, very good. Came up with three of them in less than nine months. It was supposed to take five to 12 years.'

Owens interjected: 'Yet more people have died under COVID this year, by the way, under Joe Biden, then under you and more people took the vaccine this year. So people are questioning how –'

But the former president interrupted Owens, assuring: 'Oh no, the vaccine work (sic), but some people aren't the ones. The ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take the vaccine. But it's still their choice.'

'And if you take the vaccine, you're protected,' he continued. 'Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it's a very minor form. People aren't dying when they take the vaccine.'

So far 61.6 per cent of Americans are fully vaccinated, but that isn't stopping a holiday surge in case rates. And some states are seeing numbers of new cases exceeding any other points during the pandemic as the highly transmissible Omicron variant continues to spread across the nation.

COVID cases in the U.S. have soared by 38 per cent in the last 24 hours to 238,278 new infections as the Omicron variant continues to spread, with some states seeing cases rocket by up to 670 per cent.