Omicron spreading rapidly in US - likely dominant variant by Christmas
Don't panic, but be cautious.
Omicron is in the US, and it is spreading at a dizzying pace. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the hours-long testing lines in New York City and elsewhere in the country. Cornell University had to shut down their campus after an outbreak of 900 students, with a lot being the Omicron variant (at least 130 cases have been confirmed to be Omicron).
New York today reported 21,000 new COVID cases, which is the largest one-day increase. Most of them were in New York City:
In central Florida, in Orange county, Omicron has now replaced the Delta variant as the dominant variant in wastewater samples. That’s where Disney is. Wastewater surveillance is commonly used to track infectious disease prevalence, and can often be an early sign of impending outbreaks.
At this rate of spread, it is likely going to be the dominant variant in the US by the end of the year. I could be wrong, but the signs so far certainly point to it being so.
Meanwhile, Delta is still around and causing huge issues. You may remember the US recently crossed 800,000 COVID deaths during this pandemic, and a lot of that was due to Delta. With the US now seeing 100,000+ new cases a day on average, more hospitalizations and deaths are likely to follow.
However, not all is gloom and doom. We have the tools to fight this. More and more data is now showing that getting vaccinated + boosted, wearing a mask, avoiding non-essential travel and social distancing protects you from being infected with COVID (Delta, Omicron, or any other variant). Yes, Omicron is very contagious, but if you are fully vaccinated + boosted, you protect yourself and reduce the severity of illness to mild, if you do get infected.
Also remember, human behavior is a HUGE factor. Large numbers of people gathering in closed spaces, unmasked, can also cause spread. I had made a TikTok yesterday about people attending Santacon in NYC - a lot of people who attended it fell ill with COVID in the days following. The vaccines are great, but any vaccine can be overwhelmed when challenged with enough virus.
Travel plans
With all this happening, many people are wondering what to do about their holiday/Christmas travel plans. This is complicated, and everyone needs to do their own risk evaluation and act accordingly; there’s no one size fits all answer to this. I did write a post with some guidance on how to think about your plans!
Over the next few days, I’ll write more posts about the data coming out on Omicron’s contagiousness and severity. Follow me on Twitter for more frequent updates!
As always, be mindful of anti vaxxers trying to downplay this situation. There is no need to panic, but we also cannot completely dismiss this.
Stay well, folks. Comment below with any thoughts!
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My immediate household are all fully vaccinated/boosted, yet with a daughter/son-in-law who are anti-vax/deniers, unvaccinated, coming to town for the holidays with their infant child, and staying with in-law parents who HAVE Covid, also with other family members in the house. They are arriving as soon as they believe the in-law's symptoms have disappeared and are "feeling better". While in town, they want to meet with my household family members in a neutral location (restaurant), acknowledging that "precautions" are important to my family.
Thoughts?