We have the tools to beat Omicron. Use them
Omicron is more infectious than a Lennon-McCartney hook. In a little more than a month it has gone from first identification in South Africa, to arrival in Canada, to a record spike in infections – so many that testing can’t keep up. And we have yet to reach the summit.
Many of the infected will have no symptoms, and most of the rest will have only mild symptoms – excellent news. But a small percentage will become seriously ill, and need to be hospitalized. But there’s also good news – about Omicron’s severity, the effectiveness of public-health measures, and the power of vaccines.
The first bit of good news is the mounting evidence that Omicron tends to deliver less severe symptoms than previous variants. The risk of hospitalization appears to be half that of Delta, and the risk of illness serious enough to put someone in the intensive care unit appears to be reduced by about three-quarters.