Omicron is a real problem, not only because the sheer number of infections (over 1 million new cases per day in the U.S. and climbing) has the potential to cause a lot of disruption.
My own initial Covid infection did not require hospitalization -- ergo, it was “mild.” However I have not recovered. Nearly 2 years later and I am still not able to return to work.
We must not get comfortable with this virus yet.
More reasons why Omicron isn't mild:
- Omicron isn't mild for hospitals.
- An overstretched system could ironically mask the extent of Omicron’s impact: When hospitals are full, they cannot accept more patients, artificially deflating recorded rates of severe disease, even as total cases continue to rise.
- The term "mild" is often used to describe cases that don't need hospitalization. That doesn't necessarily mean the acute infection will feel mild.
- Omicron may cause fewer respiratory infections, but research is showing that even mild or asymptomatic Covid infections cause micro-clotting, and a cascade of other problems to the brain, vascular system, kidneys, heart and more. Anyone can get Long Covid, even those who are fully boosted. Long Covid is serious.
- It’s crucial to do all we reasonably can to avoid spreading Covid to others right now, especially children, the elderly and the immunocompromised.
- Getting Covid now -- doesn’t necessarily give you future immunity to new variants. For example, the risk of reinfection during the Omicron wave is 16-fold higher than during the Delta wave.
- We don't know what comes after Omicron. The worst could still be coming. And Covid will only be endemic when the world is jabbed.
- Children can get Covid. And children can get Long Covid, too.
- Omicron shows that this virus can spread fast. The faster the virus, the more immunocompromised people it can infect and then mutate.
- The WHO says that the Omicron variant should not be called mild.
- The WHO says that Omicron is not the last variant.
- There was already a broad staffing shortage before Omicron. This is going to make it worse.
- This wave will cause disruption to supply chains. It's going to impact us in unexpected ways.
- People may say “sooner or later everyone will be exposed, so why not just get it over with?” Here's why: later we will have better and more available treatments, preventions, medicines and vaccines.
- There's no consistency on how we count hospitalizations FOR and WITH Covid.
- The US is not good at counting cases, and we are undercounting the death toll.
- Hospitalization and death rates always lag behind infection rates. So far we've been basing projections on how Omicron impacted the UK, Israel and South Africa, which have different vaccination levels than the US. Our own vaccination levels are very poor.
- Soaring Covid cases will have a knock-on effect for years to come, even when hospitalization figures appear to be relatively stable.
- The CDC's guidance about isolating for 5 days is wrong, and reckless.