Omicron is Here: Just in Time for the Holiday Season!

Before going further, I must say that as of early this morning, the scientists have no idea what the impact of the Omicron will be. They know nothing. They don’t know whether it is more transmissible, although they suspect it will be based upon South Africa current surge; they don’t know how severe the infection will be; they don’t know if the vaccines will still protect us.

The only thing they know is that Omicron has about 50 mutations whereas the Delta has 13 (or 15 or 17, depending on source). It is said that 32 of the mutations are in the spike, the part of the virus that accesses the human cell and the part that the vaccines work against; hence, the high level of alertness in the medical community.

Here’s South Africa daily cases:

That yellow mustardy line is South Africa surging in the last few days. I noticed that surge a few days before Thanksgiving when news of the new variant came out in my news feed. Both the surge and the number of mutations is probably what is causing the commotion in the medical community.

And I’d be surprised if the variant doesn’t show up in the U.S. It’s percolating somewhere in the U.S. – we just haven’t caught it yet.

Some critics say that banning travel from South Africa and the surrounding African countries is too severe and unwarranted because the ban could hurt their economy. And besides, it won’t work. On one hand, I agree that the ban will hurt the African countries and that it won’t work (it’s already here, we just haven’t found it yet) but on the other hand, I do understand the sentiment to reduce the number of cases coming into the country. It’s to halt the inflow of infected people carrying the variant and potentially worsening the situation in the US.

There is no real good answer to this dilemma.

Now, if it turns out that Omicron is worse than the Delta, what will happen next? I don’t think the American people will stand for further actions such as more or continuing social distancing and masking rules, closing certain environments, travel restrictions, etc. We just eased some of the restrictions a few months ago and to go back to that state of “semi-lockdown” will be hard to endure. People just want to go back to normal. They are looking forward to the holiday season and to really celebrating. If travel restrictions were imposed, I think people will ignore them.

I don’t think we will do a lockdown because we’ve only had one lockdown and that was in March/April 2020 and never had another one since then, unlike Europe which I think instituted multiple lockdowns to get a handle of the transmission. Speaking of Europe, I am reading that there are some protest rallies against the lockdowns (new ones?) or maybe against the social distancing, the masking, the outdoor dining rules, etc. The Europeans have been more amenable to taking actions to protect themselves and the community but I think they’ve reached the end of their rope.

Just when we thought we were nearing the end of our nightmare a new variant comes out. Doctors say that it will be about 2 or 3 weeks before we know if the Omicron will impact us very severely. Until then, the best thing to do is to take precautions: vaccinate, social distance and mask.

[Note: I wish WordPress or my theme or whatever would fix the block editor issue. I can’t use it anymore and the constant updates is messing up my website editing capabilities. It works, and then it doesn’t and then it’s back to working and then it doesn’t.]