CDC warns of incoming Omicron wave
What happened
As U.S. Covid deaths passed the 800,000 mark, federal health officials warned this week that the nation could soon be deluged by a wave of new cases driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant. “This is going to take off. The numbers of people who get sick will be substantial,” said Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. He was among several experts who in a CDC briefing warned of the variant’s breakneck rate of spread and its potential to overwhelm hospitals already filled with Covid patients sickened by the Delta variant. Omicron now accounts for nearly 3 percent of U.S. cases, a sevenfold jump within a week. Britain’s health secretary said Omicron was spreading at “a phenomenal rate,” with cases doubling every few days. Omicron is moving “faster even than the most pessimistic among us thought it was going to move,” said Jacob Lemieux, an infectious-disease physician at Harvard Medical School.
Much remained uncertain about the variant’s virulence and ability to evade vaccine protection, and emerging evidence offered reasons for both hope and for worry. A South African study showed that two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine were only 33 percent effective against Omicron infection, a steep decline from previous variants. Figures from both Denmark and the U.S. showed that some three-quarters of patients infected with Omicron had been fully vaccinated. But the South African study showed two Pfizer doses were 70 percent effective against severe disease, and indicated that Omicron is producing milder cases, with a 29 percent lower risk of hospitalization. And a British study showed that a third Pfizer dose significantly boosted protection against
Omicron, raising effectiveness against severe illness to 75 percent.
California and New York reimposed indoor mask mandates, and companies including Ford, Uber, and Google delayed plans to return workers to the office. Some infectious-disease experts said the Omicron threat should make people reconsider planned holiday gatherings. “It’s time to step back and re-evaluate,” said Harvard Medical School professor Amy Barczak.
What next?
efforts to block President Biden’s vaccine mandates. The Biden administration, meanwhile, needs to follow Britain’s example and make home tests “free and plentiful.”
Amid the fear and uncertainty are “two rays of light,” said The Buffalo News. One is preliminary evidence that Omicron may bring milder illness and “fewer and shorter hospital stays.” The other is that boosters appear to provide significant protection against Omicron. That only underlines the importance of getting vaccinated and boosted—our surest escape from “more infections, more hospitalization, and more deaths.”
What the columnists said
For vaccinated people, Omicron is deflating news, said Rachel Gutman in TheAtlantic.com. The 60 percent of Americans who’ve received their jabs have gotten used to feeling “bulletproof,” but Omicron may cause a wave of breakthrough infections. Restaurants, indoor arenas, offices, and other settings that have come to feel safe may become “fertile ground for transmission.” And that’s nothing compared with what the variant may bring to places with low vaccination rates and “strong anti-shutdown politics,” which could face “mass death and even greater grief.”
Millions of Americans are stuck in a “Covid booster gap,” said Caitlin Owens in Axios.com. Among the 150 million Americans who’ve been vaccinated but not boosted are 58 million who aren’t yet eligible for boosters because their last dose was less than six months ago. Now that boosters appear to be crucial in fighting Omicron, the U.S. should consider setting a shorter time frame for eligibility, as Britain and Denmark have just done.
A pending antiviral drug from Pfizer could prove a “key pandemic-fighting” tool, said Rebecca Falconer in Axios.com.This week the company released test results showing that its oral drug Paxlovid had 89 percent efficacy in preventing deaths and hospitalizations in high-risk patients. And its data suggest the drug, which blocks viral replication, will work against Omicron. President Biden hailed the results, saying the antiviral—which infected people will be able to take at home early in their illness—could “mark a significant step forward in our path out of the pandemic.” He said his administration had ordered enough pills to treat 10 million Americans.The FDA “should rush to get this pill out the door,” said in Pfizer applied for emergency-use authorization for Paxlovid last month, but the FDA has shown “no urgency” to greenlight it even as more than 1,200 Americans die of Covid every day.The drug could save tens of thousands of Americans from hospitalization or death in coming weeks, and if the FDA won’t move faster, Congress should step in.
Even it proves true that Omicron cases are relatively mild—and that’s a big if—the variant may overwhelm hospitals, said Joanne Kenen in Politico
More than 1,200 Americans are already dying daily amid a Delta surge that holiday gatherings will likely worsen. If Omicron sparks “an exponential outbreak,” even a small percentage of serious illnesses will put “a whole lot of strain” on already reeling health-care systems.