What Is Omicron?
January 4, 2022
Covid seems to be circling back around right in time for the holidays. We’re reaching new highs with the amount of positive cases in the U.S. A new variant has made its way around and people are getting scared. Some thought it wasn’t that bad at first, but now, with the amount of hospitalizations people have different feelings about it.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases posted data about Omicron, and it doesn’t look good. “There has been more than a tripling of COVID-19 hospitalizations in just two weeks, rising from 135 hospital admissions to 418 in the Gauteng Province.”
The strain was discovered in Africa and it’s still early to tell how bad it could get, but people are already taking precautions. The South Africa Medical Association says that the disease resulted in mild symptoms, however many countries have already imposed bans on flights from surrounding African Countries.
This new variant has made its way over to New York and there’s a spike of new cases in the city. “Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday.” https://time.com/6130568/omicron-variant-cases-covid-19/ There is 90% or more new infections in New York and more than 650,000 new cases of omicron in the U.S. Still, even with all these new cases, information about the variant is unknown. Early studies are showing that vaccination without the booster shot won’t protect you from the illness, however it should still protect you against severe illness and death.
As the days go on, the Omicron cases are growing rapidly. It’s shown to be easily transmittable and it’s already spreading extremely fast. No one knows much, but from what we knew about the previous variants it could be equally as dangerous. With new variants coming this quickly and spreading so easily, there could be severe consequences.
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