Utahns advised not to fear omicron — yet
The emergence of a troubling new COVID-19 variant dubbed omicron shouldn’t frighten Utahns — at least not yet.
“At this point, I would tell people not to be scared,” Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, an Intermountain Healthcare infectious diseases physician, told the Deseret News, predicting it will take “a number of weeks” before more is known about omicron, labeled by the World Health Organization as the first “variant of concern” since the delta variant.
So far, omicron has yet to be detected in the United States, although after first being seen in South Africa, it is starting to surface in other parts of the world including Europe. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s chief medical adviser, said over the weekend omicron “inevitably” will show up in the United States.
President Joe Biden attempted to reassure Americans on Monday, as his administration’s new restrictions on travel to the United States from South Africa and surrounding nations took effect. Other countries, including Israel, Morocco and now Japan, have closed their borders to all foreign visitors.
“This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic,” the president said. With preparations already underway to modify vaccinations and booster shots if needed, Biden said. “I’m sparing no effort, removing all roadblocks to keep the American people safe.”
Omicron’s mutations, blamed for a surge in cases in South Africa, are greater than what was seen with the delta variant that started raging across the United States last summer and continues to drive Utah’s high COVID-19 transmission rates filling hospital intensive care units.
Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that while more data is needed, the new variant’s mutations suggest not only that omicron is highly transmissible, but that it “might evade ... perhaps even antibodies that are induced by vaccine.”
Stenehjem said that will take time to determine but noted it took months for the delta variant to become dominant.
“We know very, very little. I mean, this was only first identified last week out of South Africa,” the Utah doctor said. “We knew this was coming. We knew delta wasn’t going to be our last variant. ... We’ve got the tools that we need to evaluate how it’s going to impact us.”
In the meantime, Stenehjem advised Utahns to keep taking the same precautions to slow the spread of COVID-19 — with getting vaccinated against the virus at the top of the list, followed by wearing masks and social distancing in public places, and frequent hand washing.
Those are steps that should be taken even without the threat of a new variant, he said, given that Utah continues to be among the nation’s hot spots for COVID-19. Until recently, Utah and other Intermountain West states had some of the highest case counts in the United States.
“We should probably be having that same discussion about what’s happening right now, here in the state of Utah, and the fact that we’re still at 100% ICU bed capacity before we are feeling the impact of a national holiday,” Stenehjem said. “We’ve got much bigger fish to fry here in the state of Utah than worrying about omicron.”
Omicron variant: ‘We knew this was coming,’ Utah doctor says of new COVID-19 strain
Source: Gabriella Pinoys
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