![]() But despite all the talk about breakthrough infections, the vast majority of people dying of COVID today are unvaccinated. ![]() COVID is still killing about 1,000 people each day in America. This doesn’t mean we’re entirely out of the woods. A booster shot will restore the original level of protection. Since our current vaccines target that spike protein, does this mean Omicron could make our vaccines toothless? The newest studies indicate that the variant significantly reduces-but doesn’t fully eliminate-the effectiveness of a two-dose vaccine regimen. Virologists were also alarmed to learn that most of the Omicron mutations involve changes to the spike protein that the virus uses to attach itself to human cells. Early indications hint that Omicron could be three to six times more transmissible than Delta. Data from South Africa, where most people have already been infected with the Delta variant, suggest Omicron can readily break through the immunity conferred by previous coronavirus infections. Still, Omicron, like Delta before it, could be a significant threat to public health. For conservatives, it’s tempting to assume that each new wave of COVID paranoia-like the Delta variant and, now, Omicron-is just media hype, another excuse for endless restrictions on life and commerce. And the new frenzy over Omicron threatens to widen that disconnect between our perceived and actual levels of risk.īut this doesn’t mean Omicron isn’t a problem. ![]() That lopsided emphasis makes it harder to discuss sensible policies. And yet our health officials and the media still tend to focus on case counts, rather than hospitalizations and deaths, as the benchmark metric. In other words, for a growing majority of sufferers, COVID is now a temporary annoyance rather than a terrifying scourge. COVID case count is becoming increasingly decoupled from the rate of serious and fatal infections. Although cases in which vaccinated people become infected are rising, those breakthrough infections tend to be mild. More than 70 percent of Americans over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated, and rates of hospitalization and deaths are far below their peaks. In truth, the measures the White House rushed to announce were either counterproductive, largely irrelevant, or basic steps that should have been taken months earlier.ĭespite delays and miscues, the U.S. The administration hoped to convey the message that Biden has a firm grip on the public-health tiller. On November 29, Biden called the variant a “cause for concern, not a cause for panic.” (The president’s reassuring words were slightly undercut by the fact that he repeatedly mispronounced the new strain “Omni-cron.”) Officials issued stricter COVID-testing rules for travelers entering the country and floated a plan requiring some visitors to self-quarantine. Within hours, the Biden White House announced it was shutting down travel, not just from South Africa, but from seven other African nations, most of which had yet to report a single case of the new variant. Suddenly it seemed as if we were heading into March 2020 all over again. The stock market plunged 900 points, its biggest drop of the year. New York State officials advised health-care providers to consider cancelling elective medical procedures. These mutations could make Omicron more transmissible than earlier strains and better able to elude the immunity conferred by vaccines or previous infections.īased on the initial reports, it sounded pretty scary. And this new variant looks like a doozy, with more than 50 mutations diverging from the “ancestral,” or Wuhan, strain of the virus. ![]() The World Health Organization dubbed the new strain Omicron. On November 25, South African researchers announced they’d identified yet another variant of the COVID-19 virus circulating in their country. ‘There’s no need for panic,” the experts always tell us-right before they panic. ![]()
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