Will Omicron end the pandemic?Some say optimism is premature

Almost two years later, after a series of the most deadly waves of outbreaks in American history, hopers are ready to accept the belief that the latest COVID-19 virus variants mark the beginning of the end of a pandemic. it’s finished.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said this week once Omicron subsides, “the rest of the year should be much less likely to treat Covid like a seasonal flu.” Tweeted.

Near the house, Drew Corfax, a doctor in Ukiah’s emergency room, called Omicron a “knight in shining armor.”

Omicron causes less severe illnesses, requires less hospitalization, fewer patients are on ventilator, and travels faster than the deadly delta mutation.

And while Omicron’s prevalence continues to reach unprecedented, almost incomprehensible levels, the numbers seem to tell a different story than the previous surge. This includes patients called “accidental COVID-19” patients. They enter the hospital for other reasons.

But despite optimism, infectious disease and public health experts say it will get worse before it gets better, and whether Omicron represents the last gasping of COVID-19. Is premature and declares that we are nearing the end of the pandemic.

Experts agree that with 2 million people infected daily worldwide, Omicron is unlikely to be the last mutation, and the next mutation may be even more toxic. ..

In addition, while Omicron reportedly causes less serious illnesses, a small wave of Omicron infections (about 1,000 a day in Sonoma County) can overwhelm local hospitals and healthcare providers. I have.

Dr. Michael Volmer, an infectious disease specialist and regional epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, said:

“What remains is that we are now seeing more people coming to the hospital,” he said. “Our number is still growing. We are at a level approaching what we experienced in the summer with Delta Surge.”

At a press conference Thursday, Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, said Omicron would cause “math problems” in assessing its impact on the medical system.

According to Coyle, the number of patients in hospitals across the state reached 54,000 on certain days last winter, with about 40% or 22,000 COVID-19 patients. Today, Omicron’s surge has not yet peaked, so hospitals across the state have about 51,000 patients, but only about 13,000 test positive for the virus.

“The hospital is full today, just like it was at its peak last winter,” she said. “This was when COVID hospitalizations began to surge.”

The pros and cons of Omicron

The obvious good news about Omicron is that it causes a disease that is clearly less severe than the previous Delta strains. According to the World Health Organization, South Africa’s surge in cases, mostly due to Omicron, leveled off after six weeks, the shortest-lived surge to date in the region.

According to WHO, deaths across the African Continent increased significantly in the seven days to January 9, but deaths from the Omicron surge were lower than in previous COVID-19 waves and hospitalizations remained. It is said that there are few.

Scientists say Omicron may have peaked in the UK and parts of the United States. Meanwhile, a study in South Africa also found that the immune response of people infected with Omicron appears to increase protection against deltas.

Many people, especially those who are fed up with public health measures, make Omicron a kind of heavenly blessing, as Omicron causes less serious illnesses and appears to provide protection against deadly Delta strains. Is starting to be considered.

But Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said it was too early to make the call.

“I think people are giving too much credit to the Omicron variant,” Riley said in an email. “As we saw in this pandemic as a whole, variants come and go.”

Riley said the surge in Omicron has begun to level off in places like New York, but because enough people in the United States aren’t infected with Omicron, Omicron is in a state of endemic disease. He said he wouldn’t tell.

“Omicrons gradually disappear and are replaced by new variants, regardless of vaccination status or infection rate,” he said. “We need more waves of variants to reach this pandemic epidemic.”