Omicron ISN’T a Bad Cold
In this really short Medium article, I’ll be discussing why we shouldn’t go actively looking to get infected with Omicron on purpose, how having the mentality to think Omicron being mild is generally wishful thinking and the rest will be on scientific evidence-based wording. Nor are we at a point of this virus being endemic either, this is another scientific inconsistency. Without further ado, here’s the article.
➡ Omicron is not just a “bad cold”
Even with Omicron, the USA is still having over 1500 deaths per day, there are even cases of people getting Long-Covid with Omicron, just because Delta may not be so prevalent now doesn’t mean that we should expose our bodies to Omicron because uninformed individuals deem it as “mild”. You can still get Long-Covid even if you have a mild case as well. (Source: https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-providers/civil-rights-covid19/guidance-long-covid-disability/index.html#footnote10_0ac8mdc)
Omicron can be spread to EVERYONE including children, in London children under six in London are now almost four times more likely than school-aged children to be admitted to hospital with Covid. There were 17.7 admissions for every 100K under-sixes in London — the highest rate in England — compared to 4.7 per 100K for children aged six to 17. 27 children aged 0 to five were admitted to hospital with Covid in London in the seven days to January 4. That was an increase of 86% compared to the week to December 21 — when there were 68 admissions. And on December 1, just 20 young children were in the hospital with Covid-19. (Source: https://www.londonworld.com/health/coronavirus/record-numbers-of-covid-19-hospital-admissions-of-london-children-in-0-5-age-group-3523166)
This South African study that was published in the JAMA science journal looks at the characteristics and outcomes of hospitalized patients, which definitely makes for an interesting read. (Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2787776)
The USA is seeing more than 1million cases per day and well over 580,000 pediatric cases were reported last week as well in the USA. (Source 1: https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization) (Source 2: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailycases)
Early data for the USA on Omicron are pointing to an aspect of concern that Omicron cases could turn severe when looking at pediatric and adult patients. (Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.30.21268495v1)
A report by Imperial College London indicated that the risk of reinfection with Omicron was 5.4 times greater than the Delta variant. (Source: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/report-49-Omicron/)
➡ Appeal to Nature Fallacy
Never always think that getting something from a natural infection is always better, what you’re potentially putting yourself, your body and your immune system through is not very positive. Listening to an echo chamber of information can misinform and endanger those if one doesn’t listen to proper scientific evidence. One article from the Behavioral Scientist goes into this logical fallacy more in-depth and in detail. (Source: https://behavioralscientist.org/natural-is-better-how-the-naturalistic-fallacy-derails-public-health/)
➡ Understanding Omicron Mutations
The Washington Post has made a fantastic scientifically detailed article explaining the many mutations that Omicron has had. For a quick summary if you do not want to read the article. The Omicron variant has 50 genetic mutations, 36 of them are in the S-Protein, which is substantially a lot more than previous variants. (Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/16/omicron-variant-mutations-covid/)
➡ Vaccines Still Protect Against Omicron
South African data shows that vaccination is still very effective against Omicron, and has high levels of protection against severe disease, hospitalisation and death. (Source: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270)
An article from Nature states that our NK (Natural Killer) Cells from our immune can still recognise the Omicron variant, which is a massive positive when fighting this new variant. (Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00063-0)
A real-life study from South Africa found that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine still protected people from severe disease. Researchers found that two doses provided 70 per cent protection against hospitalization and 33 per cent protection against infection. This is why having a booster is of the utmost importance right now. (Source: https://discovery-holdings-ltd.mynewsdesk.com/pressreleases/discovery-health-south-africas-largest-private-health-insurance-administrator-releases-at-scale-real-world-analysis-of-omicron-outbreak-based-dot-dot-dot-3150697.pdf)
➡ Conclusion
Stop treating, thinking and talking about getting Omicron because the uninformed minority seem to think it’s no worse than a cold, this is what will make the virus mutate and we may have another variant on our hands where it could be more lethal than Delta whilst having the same transmission rate as Omicron. YES, viruses don’t just innately mutate to become weaker straight away, virology 101. More information about variants and mutations about Covid-19 here: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-does-it-mean-that-the-coronavirus-is-mutating/
💥 Thanks for reading, Lawrence. Please consider a small contribution, in the form of a beer as all articles are created in my small amount of spare time: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LawrenceRob