'One of the important things will be determining whether people who were vaccinated and got Omicron clear quickly so they’re not infectious,' explains EricTopol, since the variant is going to temporarily knock out a lot of health care workers
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: CDC As the Omicron variant rips across the world, key questions remain about its virulence and some of the early data seems to be at odds with itself. Last week, a study out of South Africa suggested a 29 percent reduction in severe illness, which has been followed by other encouraging data. This week, a small study by Imperial College London found “no evidence” that Omicron caused less severe disease than Delta.
It’s a classic example of “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Because it was based on 24 hospitalizations, which is a very small number, we really can’t say much about it. If you look at South Africa, the U.K., Denmark, Norway, all the places where there’s a heavy Omicron burden, it’s very clear that it’s a milder picture, a less-severe picture. The reason for that, though, has been ascribed to the virus and that’s a big mistake.
There’s been a very sharp decrease in cases in Gauteng province in South Africa. What do you make of that? Still, of the things that they can control, there have been many shortcomings. First of all, boosters were delayed. The data showing the benefit against Delta were absolutely unequivocal. If we had gotten more people boosted earlier we’d be in a better position to handle Omicron. We knew it was an issue, and we knew we could deal with it back in August, and we never had consensus. The messaging has been really muddled and mixed.
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