What’s Really Up With Omicron?
Just when you thought Covid was finally going away, news has broken about Omicron, a new variant of the virus. What does this mean in terms of public policy? What will be the effects on the health of people?
What do we do now?
After two years of fighting, Covid people are tired of increasingly bad news. But they don’t want to jump the gun and see another lengthy lockdown.
The truth is that we really don’t know that much about Omicron yet.
As NPR reports, “There’s a mantra in crisis communication: Be first, be right, be credible. “One of those is clearly being first,” says Crystal Watson, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “So even though we don’t know a whole lot right now, I think it’s important to hear from public health officials.
“That said, being credible also means not giving information you may have to retract as more is learned. Walking that line can be very tricky, as U.S. health officials learned at the start of the pandemic when they underestimated the usefulness of masks in protecting against infection.”
We know that Omicron is a variant of Covid. But honestly, we don’t know for how long it’s been around. While it was reported as found in South Africa first, South Africa is where variants are studied and identified. Any new variant discovered is apt to be discovered there first.
There may very well have been Omicron cases in Europe and the United States for months. We just don’t know yet.
The same goes for how it will react to vaccines.
The vaccines may stop it cold. Or they may be able to evade the vaccines. Only testing will tell us which is likely to happen.
Regardless, being vaccinated is better than not being vaccinated and it lowers the chance to catch other variants. We don’t know if that will be the case with Omicron at all. We will just have to wait and see.
What we do know is that in the one case discovered in America, the symptoms were not severe.
According to Deadline, “In terms of medical attention, Governor Newsom announced, “This individual has not been hospitalized. The individuals that this person has encountered have not tested positive yet, to the best of our knowledge.”
That would seem like good news. The government stressed that the patient had been double vaccinated which would seem to support the idea that even if the vaccines can’t prevent Omicron, they can make the symptoms less severe. So, for now, get double vaxed and if eligible, get a booster to keep Omicron in check.
We’ll learn more in the days to come. At this point, do not panic. There is no evidence yet that it is any more of a risk than current variants. We just have to wait and see.
Photo by Matteo Jorjoson on Unsplash
