The new Omicron strain has been clinging to the front row COVID news recently, and plenty of experts are worried about it. Also, as was expected, the Omicron variant led to a lot of speculations and false claims online.
What’s for sure is that Omicron won’t bring the apocalypse to the world. Neither will it make the coronavirus gain huge sizes and eat us all up. As for now, the former FDA Commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, says there’s no indication that the Omicron variant can cause more severe illness, according to Daily Mail.
Hospitalizations rates for Omicron have gone down
Dr. Scott Gottlieb spoke for CBS’s Face the Nation about how the Omicron variant is developing.
Dr. Gottlieb said to Margaret Brennan, the network host, the following, as quoted by Daily Mail:
There’s no indication that it causes more severe illness,
What we’ve seen in South Africa in particular, is a decoupling between the cases and hospitalizations.
The former FDA Commissioner explains the low severity of the illness as follows, while cited by the same source:
Probably around 80 percent of Americans and 90 percent of South Africans have some level of immunity, either from prior infection or through vaccination,
So even though we’re still getting infected because this is spreading through immune evasion, it’s spreading by evading the immune- immunity that we’ve acquired.
As the world fears the new Omicron variant, there are other reasons why we must be optimistic. For instance, both Pfizer and Merck are awaiting approval for their COVID pills, and the early clinical research studies have brought back promising results.
If the meds will be approved, those willing to be treated for the coronavirus will get them from pharmacies or as prescribed by the doctor.
