Omicron changes the risk situation for vaccinated people

Even before Omicron arrives, winter months will be tough for parts of the United States.COVID infection rates in the south ignited in the summer, but in the northeast and Great Plains states Periodic factors And high vaccination rate. But weather and patterns of human life have shifted the burden of illness north for vacations — and it was just Delta.Enter the new variant that will be displayed High ability to avoid immunity, And the waves of the season can end in a tsunami.

In July, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said the COVID was “Unvaccinated pandemic, ” Unfortunate wording It will soon President.. Now, the flaws in that logic are about to be revealed in what may be terrifying. Unvaccinated Americans will certainly pay the highest price in the coming months, but the risk seems to be greater for everyone. The vaccination pandemic can no longer be denied.

60% of fully vaccinated Americans will soon find that their lives look very different. For those who received two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, or one injection of Johnson & Johnson, most of the summer and fall. Bulletproof in natureEspecially if they were young and healthy. However, preliminary data from South Africa and Europe suggest that even two vaccinations alone may result in frequent vaccinations. Breakthrough infections Rapid spread of illness, even if the chances of hospitalization or death remain low. Getting 3 or 2 shots and a previous COVID seizure seems to provide more protection. For Saad Omer, director of the Yale University Institute for Global Health, this is sufficient evidence to justify the CDC changes. Definition of complete vaccination.. “I don’t think there’s any reason why you shouldn’t make a pretty strong push to everyone who has a booster, as Omicron and the data are emerging,” he told me.

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at this point, CDC recorded Less than a quarter of adults who are fully vaccinated under existing definitions receive a third dose. It leaves about 150 million people vaccinated but not boosted. People in this group are at increased risk of transmitting the disease to unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children and unvaccinated or immunologically vulnerable adults, given their weak protection against infection. .. They will also make it easier to pass the coronavirus between them. Places that were previously considered safe for vaccinated people, such as restaurants and performance venues that closely check vaccination status, are infected because people inside are more likely to catch and spread the virus. It can be a fertile place.Indeed, case reports are already Large indoor rally of Fully vaccinated people It could be a superspreader event in the era of Omicron.

Population-level immunity can suffer in other ways, Omar said: People who were previously protected for previous infections are now very vulnerable to reinfection and inheriting the disease. It may be. In fact, the only region of the country where community infections can slow down could be those that faced a catastrophic early wave of the virus and subsequently showed strong vaccination rates. “It’s very, very difficult to think about how these differences occur,” Joshua Siffer, a disease modeling expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me.

The results are as follows. Each fully vaccinated person may have a minimal risk of getting seriously ill or dying from COVID this winter, but normal traces of the surroundings begin to bend or break. There is a possibility that it will happen. In the worst-case scenario, even highly vaccinated areas could see “the overwhelming hospital system that was seen early in Boston and New York City in 2020.” The Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Network Scientist, Samuel Sculpino Institute, told me.If only a small portion of Omicron infection leads to hospitalization, the variant is still Spread with such ferocity Millions of people can need a bed.

Such a scenario is especially dangerous if those millions of people all need a bed. at the same time.. Omicron is so contagious that cases can peak more or less tandem across the country, both Schiffer and Sculpino said. ICU capacity in some states is already growing thinly, Healthcare workers are resigning all at once, Therefore, the harm can be exacerbated. “If we don’t take it seriously, if we don’t wear masks, if we don’t take the test, people will die in the hospital corridors, so we’ll be back in the blockage again,” Sculpino said. The possibility of such a surge in hospitalization is “to be honest, staying up late,” Schiffer told me.

This is all mitigated If Omicron is found to cause significantly milder illness than Delta— Still possible, but far from confirming — and whether the vaccine’s defenses against severe illness are strong. However, even in its sunny version in the future, cases will almost certainly increase in high and low vaccination areas as well, causing a lot of disruption to daily life. Schiffer suggested that in areas of sufficient political will (mainly highly vaccinated areas), high case rates could encourage local leaders to initiate new closures.In any case, people who are fully vaccinated Still need to be quarantined At least 10 days after a positive test, and anyone they have come into contact with may have to do Stay home from school or work.. A positive test in the classroom can send dozens of children to the quarantine and keep parents away from work to take care of them.Jon Zelner, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, said the massive turmoil caused by the Omicron surge this winter Force Americans to rethink these types of procedures..

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Whatever the impact on vaccinated Americans, Omicron’s fallout will be much more serious for everyone else. Inconveniences can be replaced by mass mortality and even greater sorrow in places where vaccination rates are low and shutdown politics is strong. And devastation, on average, will almost certainly grow in rural communities, poor communities, and color communities. “It is the unvaccinated people who are at the worst risk to the worst consequences. Some people do not have the ability or luxury to quarantine, and some are hiding when they appear to be overcrowded. There will be, “says Zelner. People with multiple jobs may not have time to take advantage of boosters or sick leave while recovering from side effects. People living in areas with poor hospital systems will find it harder to find a bed and receive worse care if they get sick.

These futures have not yet been written in stone. The extent of future difficulties depends on Omicron’s ability to cause severe illness and death. And while Omicron seems likely to overtake Delta, “Omicron is still low enough that it can have a significant impact in the following cases: [we] “Act early,” Sculpino said, but “act early last week.” Even a month ago, I was able to pretend to be a burden to people living elsewhere, far away from the vaccinated people in the vaccinated area. Now that delusion looks more unstable than ever.