The existing vaccines appear to be nearly worthless at preventing the spread of Omicron, and the symptoms appear to be very mild regardless of vaccination status. A recent booster may delay infection for a couple of months, but the outbreaks in fully vaccinated and boosted populations shows that the vaccines are not going to prevent the Omicron epidemic.
Most cold viruses are coronaviruses. The immune response goes down with time and the viruses keep evolving into new variants.
Are we going to play whack-a-mole with vaccinations forever to protect from a cold virus?
No, and I am planning on intentionally catching a booster either.
There is good news from South Africa; it looks like it is past its peak number of cases.
âThe drop in new cases nationally combined with the sustained drop in new cases seen here in Gauteng province, which for weeks has been the center of this wave, indicates that we are past the peak,â Marta Nunes, senior researcher at the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics department of the University of Witwatersrand, told The AP.
âIt was a short waveâŚand the good news is that it was not very severe in terms of hospitalizations and deaths,â she said. It is ânot unexpected in epidemiology that a very steep increase, like what we saw in November, is followed by a steep decrease.â
Knock on wood it seems to be a blessing if things stand. The latest study out of the UK is showing much lower hospitalizations from this variant, as long as the delta goes away and a new funky delta doesnât replace it we might be watching the later stages of a deadly pandemic develop into a common coronavirus.
Of course thatâs if a deadly mutation doesnât come along, but overall this is good news.
Dear lord I just saw they really said that. Itâs looking like the early news about omicron from South Africa could be right that it is milder than delta. We should be happy and the WH should be putting out a little brighter messages.
They could still be cautious and say something like good news recent studies are showing omicron is way less deadly than delta but letâs all stay safe and get vaccinated instead of during the holidays sounding like Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones.
