Omicron Coronavirus Outbreak – Matter Of Concern

A fresh and potentially more transmissible variant of the coronavirus has been identified initially by a South African doctor and has initiated another round of restrictions on tours and travel across the globe and today again the same big question is looming large in the minds of all people

Omicron Coronavirus Outbreak – Matter Of Concern

What next? Do we have to again face a fresh spell of lockdown? Do we have to confine ourselves to four walls of our houses and face shutting down of schools, colleges, malls, etc? 

What people have been suffering for the last twenty months they want to put an end to it all and come out of it. They want to again start living freely and without any restrictions, as was the scenario in pre covid times.

But the biggest question is – will it be possible in 2022? People had started heaving a sigh of relief as the covid pandemic was dwindling day by day and everything was returning slowly to normal. But the advent of Omicron has once again shaken the entire world. 

The new strain, named as Omicron, was declared on Friday as a variant of concern by the renowned World Health Organization. It is said that studies on this new strain are underway as experts continue to monitor it.

While the scientist community says there is a strong reason to be concerned over the emergence of Omicron yet they laid stress on the fact that there is still a lot about this variant that needs to be known including whether this variant is more contagious than its predecessor or whether it leads to more severe disease or how does it affect doubly vaccinated people, so on and so forth.

The epidemiologist Dr. Abdul El-Sayed told CNN that though this is concerning, as the WHO has indicated, yet we have to sit quietly and wait for the science on this for at least two weeks.

Mr.Salim Abdool Karim, former co-chairman of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 said that it will be only after a couple of weeks that more answers will be clear.

He further said that the reality is that it’s been only a week since we have known about this virus, so we don’t really have the necessary data needed to answer those questions precisely. Karim said Monday when asked whether it may be possible that Omicron is more virulent, more transmissible, and evades vaccines but that is yet to be seen.

Medical experts say that detection of the new Omicron variant is proof that the virus is still there amidst us regardless of Covid-19 pandemic fatigue.

On Monday Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said to CNN’s Jake Tapper that health officers should be able to ascertain in a week or two as to how severe cases caused by this new variant will be.

Fauci added that US doctors are getting the required information from their counterparts based in South Africa.

There are a number of patients suffering from Omicron whose case study will prove to be very vital and they have assured the US doctors that they would certainly arrive at some sort of conclusions probably in a matter of a week and a half, as to whether this new variant is more deadly than its previous counterpart or less severe. Fauci said that it could be either of the two options.

There’s no indication about whether this virus is making people more ill or not. In fact, there’s some information offered from doctors in South Africa that this virus could be causing only a mild illness.

It is also reported that initial cases seem to be clustered only in younger people, maybe in outbreaks around universities. Well, all we can do is wait and watch.