Omicron is often described as mild, but this variant still poses a real danger for people whose age or medical conditions put them at higher risk of becoming very sick with COVID-19.
The findings haven’t yet been peer reviewed, but are consistent with data from other countries, including afrom South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases. Researchers determined that prior infection and vaccination deserved much of the credit for protecting Omicron patients, but even unvaccinated people were less likely to become dangerously sick with Omicron compared to previous variants.
These studies all offer encouraging news. But this doesn’t mean that vaccinated, generally healthy individuals should write Omicron off as nothing to worry about, experts say. “We need to be cautious in not celebrating this,” says Sam Torbati, the co-chair and medical director of emergency medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Health officials and the public should be “aware that this disease is still a major problem and it’s going to continue to have a significant impact for populations that are at high risk.”
“When hospitals are filling up and emergency rooms and ICUs may be overwhelmed, you need to take it seriously even if the expectation is that you might have mild disease.”Since the beginning of the pandemic, hospital records have shown that the dangers of COVID-19 aren’t equally felt across the US population. Among the conditions that make individuals
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