Covid-19 - The new variant Omicron | Ipse by Context

Boris Pavlin

Inserted 2 years ago

“Based on data from Denmark, the first country where BA.2 overtook BA.1, there appears to be no difference in disease severity, although BA.2 has the potential to replace BA.1 globally. Looking at other countries where BA.2 is now overtaking, we're not seeing any higher bumps in hospitalization than expected. The subvariant is already becoming dominant in the Philippines, Nepal, Qatar, India and Denmark. Vaccination is profoundly protective against severe disease, including for Omicron. BA.2 is rapidly replacing BA.1. Its impact is unlikely to be substantial, although more data are needed.”

Reuters

WHO's COVID-19 Response Team

01 Feb 2022 9 4

Amesh Adalja

Inserted 2 years ago

“When you say that a disease [has] transitioned from epidemic to endemic, there are no hard and fast rules to determine that. Once COVID-19 loses that ability through enough immunity … I think the world is going to get to endemicity, but it's going to be on different timelines depending upon where you are at. I think that from the very first day in the COVID-19 pandemic, it was always going to be the case that this became an endemic respiratory virus. The main priority was to get more tools, like vaccines, antivirals, and monoclonal antibodies, that would help to reduce the strain on hospitals and health systems. Omicron has accelerated this process … we are basically at the cusp of endemicity and it may be the case that after Omicron surge washes over the countries of the world, we will be clearly in the endemic phase.”

Aljazeera

Infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

29 Jan 2022 10 2

Vasily Vlasov

Inserted 2 years ago

“If we see that omicron cases [in Western countries] are generally mild, we need to remember that those are countries where most older people are vaccinated. I certainly wouldn't assume that everything will pass as easily here.”

Rferl

Russian epidemiologist

13 Jan 2022 4 3

Hans Kluge

Inserted 2 years ago

“I am deeply concerned that, as the variant moves east, we have yet to see its full impact in countries where levels of vaccination uptake are lower, and where we will see more severe disease in the unvaccinated.”

Rferl

WHO’s regional director for Europe

11 Jan 2022 3 1

David Naylor

Inserted 2 years ago

“Omicron is moving so quickly that it has become pretty much impossible to pin down the full extent of spread in real time. PCR testing capacity is overwhelmed. Rapid antigen tests [RAT] are inconsistently available. Those with positive RAT results often have no way to register them let alone confirm them.”

Cbc

Doctor who led the federal inquiry into Canada's national response to the 2003 SARS epidemic and now co-chairs the federal government's COVID-19 immunity task force

05 Jan 2022 5 3

William Hanage

Inserted 2 years ago

“Even if Omicron were half as virulent as Delta, but infected four times as many people, twice as fast, that's still a wrecking ball aimed at a teetering healthcare system. The NHS is already seeing staff shortages from illness and quarantine, and weighing the possibility of reducing or cancelling services.”

Theguardian

Epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

05 Jan 2022 5 2

Peter Hoetz

Inserted 2 years ago

“We have to be really careful about being too dismissive of Omicron. Rising hospitalizations as healthcare workers are sidelined with their own COVID cases is also concerning, as are fewer effective therapeutics. We're in for a pretty serious time.”

Reuters

Infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine

30 Dec 2021 4 5

Michael Osterholm

Inserted 2 years ago

“We are going to see the number of cases in this country rise so dramatically, we are going to have a hard time keeping everyday life operating. The next month is going to be a viral blizzard. All of society is going to be pressured by this.”

Reuters

American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota

30 Dec 2021 3 3

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Inserted 2 years ago

“I'm highly concerned that omicron, being more transmissible (and) circulating at the same time as delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases. That will put immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems of the brink of collapse. I still remain optimistic that this can be the year we can not only end the acute stage of the pandemic, but we also chart a path to stronger health security.”

Apnews

Director-General of the World Health Organization

29 Dec 2021 6 2

Christian Dubé

Inserted 2 years ago

“The province has little choice but to change its isolation protocols due to the meteoric spread of the Omicron variant, which has created staff shortages. The health system cannot maintain services while nearly 7,000 workers are home isolating because of a positive COVID-19 test or exposure to the virus. Omicron's contagion is so exponential that a huge number of personnel have to be withdrawn, and that poses a risk to the network capacity to treat Quebecers.”

Thestar

Quebec Health Minister

28 Dec 2021 4 2

Robert Wachter

Inserted 2 years ago

“The lower hospitalization rate is likely due to two things: greater immunity among the public from vaccines and prior coronavirus infection, and that omicron might be slightly less severe than delta. Vaccines don't stop infections with omicron, but they do reduce the risk of hospitalization by about 70% - with a booster shot, that figure is even higher. If you're a person who has no immunity at all, no vaccination and no prior infection or your prior infection was a year and a half ago and it was mild, you're not out of the woods. There is a reasonable chance that you will get very sick with omicron.”

Npr

Chair of the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco

27 Dec 2021 9 3

William Schaffner

Inserted 2 years ago

“Although hospitalizations may be less, that doesn't mean zero. There are many places in the country where hospitalizations now are increasing.”

Cnn

Professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

24 Dec 2021 2 3

Raywat Deonandan

Inserted 2 years ago

“We have data out of the UK that suggests that there may be an intrinsic mildness to Omicron as compared to Delta but it's not by a lot, and the hyper contagiousness of Omicron means that even that mildness probably won't protect the health care system. So that is why we have to curtail transmission as much as we can. A tiny fraction of a large number, is still going to be a very large number.”

Cbc

Epidemiologist and Science Communicator specializing in Global Health

24 Dec 2021 6 3

Maria Van Kerkhove

Inserted 2 years ago

“Less than 0.1% each of the sequences uploaded to platforms like GISAID have been Alpha, Beta and Gamma. 96% of the sequences available are still Delta. About 1.6% of sequences that have been shared in recent weeks is Omicron. We definitely see increasing growth rates of Omicron where it's been detected and it's now been reported in more than 106 countries to date. There is a combination of factors that we think are leading to this increasing transmission. First are the mutations that are identified in the Omicron variant and we know something about these mutations because some of these are present in other variants of concern. So, for example, in Omicron there are mutations that allow the virus to adhere to the cell more easily and infect the cell more easily. We also see immune escape where we see increasing rates of reinfection. And then there is some preliminary data that's looking at the efficiency and replication of the Omicron variant in the upper respiratory tract as opposed to the lower respiratory tract in the lungs. So this combination of factors is likely leading to why we are seeing increased growth rates in a number of countries.”

Twitter

World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist

22 Dec 2021 14 2

Matthew Binnicker

Inserted 2 years ago

“It's important to emphasize that if omicron has a much higher transmission rate compared to delta, the absolute number of people requiring hospitalization might still increase, despite less severe disease in most cases.”

Apnews

Director of clinical virology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota

22 Dec 2021 4 2

Anthony Fauci

Inserted 2 years ago

“There are many of these parties that have 30, 40, 50 people in which you do not know the vaccination status of individuals. Those are the kind of functions in the context of Omicron that you do not want to go to.”

Usnews

Top US infectious disease expert

22 Dec 2021 3 3

Bonnie Henry

Inserted 2 years ago

“We are learning about this virus after two years, almost two years, and we know that it is inevitable now that most of us in the province will be exposed at some point, the way that this virus is being transmitted, this strain of the virus is being transmitted in communities across the province. It is over time very likely that all of us will have exposure to it. How it affects us depends on our own actions and what we are doing.”

Cbc

Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia

21 Dec 2021 5 4

Sabrina Wong

Inserted 2 years ago

“This is really about a harm reduction approach. So no matter what the new restrictions will be, there will be some who will not change their behaviour and want to see their family and friends. So wouldn't it be better to test and find COVID before the person enters the gathering or the event? We know that people's mental health has deteriorated and many people are emotionally burned out. So rapid antigen testing can be used to ease people's anxiety about whether they have COVID. It's not going to go away very quickly, this pandemic, so people need to start to feel more confident in going about their daily lives.”

Cbc

Professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Nursing

21 Dec 2021 5 4

Magdalena Andersson

Inserted 2 years ago

“We must now take joint responsibility and we need adapt to the new reality. I understand that many are tired of this - so am I - but we now have a new virus variant, which means we are in a new situation.”

Reuters

Prime Minister of Sweden

21 Dec 2021 2 3

Amesh Adalja

Inserted 2 years ago

“All of us have a date with omicron. If you're going to interact with society, if you're going to have any type of life, omicron will be something you encounter, and the best way you can encounter this is to be fully vaccinated.”

Apnews

20 Dec 2021 3 3

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Covid-19 - The new variant Omicron

“If we see that omicron cases [in Western countries] are generally mild, we need to remember that those are countries where most older people are vaccinated. I certainly wouldn't assume that everything will pass as easily here.”

“I am deeply concerned that, as the variant moves east, we have yet to see its full impact in countries where levels of vaccination uptake are lower, and where we will see more severe disease in the unvaccinated.”

“We have to be really careful about being too dismissive of Omicron. Rising hospitalizations as healthcare workers are sidelined with their own COVID cases is also concerning, as are fewer effective therapeutics. We're in for a pretty serious time.”

“We are going to see the number of cases in this country rise so dramatically, we are going to have a hard time keeping everyday life operating. The next month is going to be a viral blizzard. All of society is going to be pressured by this.”

“Although hospitalizations may be less, that doesn't mean zero. There are many places in the country where hospitalizations now are increasing.”

“It's important to emphasize that if omicron has a much higher transmission rate compared to delta, the absolute number of people requiring hospitalization might still increase, despite less severe disease in most cases.”

“There are many of these parties that have 30, 40, 50 people in which you do not know the vaccination status of individuals. Those are the kind of functions in the context of Omicron that you do not want to go to.”

“We must now take joint responsibility and we need adapt to the new reality. I understand that many are tired of this - so am I - but we now have a new virus variant, which means we are in a new situation.”

“All of us have a date with omicron. If you're going to interact with society, if you're going to have any type of life, omicron will be something you encounter, and the best way you can encounter this is to be fully vaccinated.”

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