Omicron rises, but delta remains main challenge

Vaccinations and booster shots continue to be the best defense against the coronavirus for the U. S., even with the spread of the new omicron variant, which now has been reported in at least 16 states, health officials said Sunday.

Vaccines developed to fight the original COVID- 19 strain have offered good protection against the delta variant, the dominant strain in the U. S., said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He believes they will help with omicron, especially for those who also get a booster shot.

“If you get boosted … we feel certain that there will be some degree and maybe a considerable degree of protection against the omicron variant if in fact it starts to take hold in a dominant way in this country,” Fauci told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

While omicron has rightfully raised concerns, the delta variant, accounting for 99.9% of the 90,000 to 100,000 cases reported each day in the U. S., remains the main strain to contend with, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

To fight all forms of the coronavirus, she recommended that people get vaccinations and boosters and wear masks in public indoor settings in the 80% of counties where there is high or substantial transmission of the disease.

“We have so many more tools now than we did a year ago,” said Walensky, who favors mask recommendations over a national mandate. “We know so many things that work against SARS- CoV- 2, the virus that causes COVID, regardless of the variant that we’ve seen before.”

Partisanship biggest factor regarding vaccine, poll says

Even as booster- shot uptake increases amid the emergence of the omicron variant, partisanship remains the biggest determining factor when it comes to vaccination against COVID- 19, a new survey found.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor for November, onequarter of all Republicans, white Evangelicals and uninsured adults under 65 say they definitely won’t get the vaccine. That’s the biggest opposition to the shots expressed among the 25 categories in the poll’s breakdown.

While 91% of Democrats report getting at least one vaccine dose, only 59% of Republicans have done so. A large disparity in the vaccination rate by party has been evident for months.

However, willingness to receive a booster shot has grown, with more than twice as many adults saying they got one compared to the previous month, and 23% of those fully vaccinated reporting having been boosted. Biden administration officials have been promoting the shots as a way to increase protection against omicron.

Also in the news:

Ten people aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Breakaway tested positive for COVID- 19 as it was approaching its return to New Orleans.

More than 6% of the Air National Guard and Reserve did not meet the deadline to get the COVID- 19 vaccine, according to the Air Force.

The FDA authorized monoclonal antibody treatments made by Eli Lilly for pediatric patients under 12 years old who have underlying conditions that make them highrisk for serious infection.

A justice of Brazil’s top court ordered on Friday that President Jair Bolsonaro be investigated for comments linking COVID- 19 vaccines to AIDS – an assertion rejected by doctors and scientists.