Highly transmissible omicron has Americans on edge — again

On a beautiful December afternoon, Dr. Cedric Dark, along with several colleagues, was posted up in front of the south entrance to the Houston Zoo with a clear goal in mind: to make sure you don’t end up in an emergency room, where he works.

“If someone doesn’t catch COVID, they don’t have to see me,” Dark said.

He had Tuesday morning off, he explained, and a stockpile of N95 masks that had been distributed to doctors by the Texas College of Emergency Physicians early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when personal protective equipment was harder to come by. Also, he had some contacts at the zoo, who were happy to help when he had the idea of donating his extra boxes of N95 masks to the general public.

For Dark, getting through the pandemic without catching COVID at all has been an overarching goal. But with that said, he continued, other Americans have a higher risk tolerance. And so the name of the game is straightforward: “Risk mitigation and layered protection.”

“People are going to do what they’re going to do, at this point,” Dark said. “We’re not going to be able to say, ‘Don’t get together.’ So if you are going to get together — and that’s your choice, if you want to do that — then go ahead and do it in a fashion that is safe.”

Get vaccinated, in other words, and boosted. If you’re feeling sick, cancel your plans. If you’re not, take a rapid test before you meet with others, if possible. And upgrade your mask to an N95, which confers more protection than a surgical mask or a wisp of cotton.

Americans may be more receptive to such advice, now that the omicron variant is ravaging the nation.

We had enjoyed a few weeks of seeming respite this fall, a year and a half since the pandemic began. That’s over now, alas. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday reported that omicron is now the dominant variant, accounting for 73 percent of new COVID-19 cases

across the country. That figure is likely to rise, thanks to the transmissibility of this particular variant.

A sense of urgency has reached the White House. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced his plan for battling omicron, to include the distribution of 500 million free at-home rapid tests — this just two weeks after White House press secretary Jen Psaki scoffed at the suggestion that the administration should launch such an effort.

On Monday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo raised the county’s threat level back to orange, the second-highest level, citing the arrival of the omicron variant and its rapid spread. Several hours later, she had sad news: the county’s first death attributed to the omicron variant — the first such death in the entire country since omicron was identified in the United States several weeks ago, perhaps. The deceased, according to Hidalgo, was a man in his 50s, who had an underlying health condition and was not vaccinated.

Unvaccinated Americans, of course, are at greater risk of experiencing a severe case of COVID-19 than Americans who have been vaccinated. And the warnings being issued to the former, by public health professionals, are being phrased in stark terms.

Still, the anti-science crowd, in particular, is as restive as ever. On Sunday, a Dallas crowd booed former President Donald Trump after he announced, at a joint appearance with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, that he’s received the booster shot as well as being fully vaccinated.

O’Reilly — who also admitted that he vaccinated and boosted, and was also heckled over this admission — said that Trump had been stung by the boos, and mentioned them in a subsequent phone call.

“I said, ‘This is good for you — this is good that people see another side of you, not a political side’,” O’Reilly related. “You told the truth — you believe in the vax, your administration did it, and you should take credit for it.”

Perhaps Trump should take a lesson from philosophical forerunners such as Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan: the forces of extremism always outpace the candidates who attempt to weaponize them.

By their memes ye shall know them: in this case, one unvaccinated reader sent me a cartoon of a crowd of identical women, wearing identical masks, speaking with one rote voice.

“I am fully vaccinated and boosted, and just tested positive for COVID-19,” the women, perhaps named Karen, are depicted as saying. “I am grateful for the protection my vaccines continue to provide!”

Well, vaccinated Americans should be grateful for the protection vaccines provide, especially now that a highly transmissible new variant has invited itself over for the holidays — holidays many of us were planning to celebrate alongside friends and family we weren’t able to visit with last year, thanks to the pandemic.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty about omicron, it should be noted, and some reports have indicated that it may be less likely to cause severe illness than the delta variant, which it’s displacing. Still, according to front-line workers, it’s best to minimize your risk of catching it.

“COVID’s COVID,” Dark said, as a steady line of cars stopped by his tent. “I don’t care what name it goes by.”

It may, at this stage, be something we need to learn to live with. But that’s not a reason to be complacent.