The omicron variant has spread to western nations. Global health officials are cautioning against panic and travel restrictions.
Summary
The United States is seeing its first handful of cases of the coronavirus’ omicron variant, including five cases in New York.
- In India, health officials are expecting omicron’s impact to be less severe than delta, which ravaged the country, due to higher vaccination rates and prior exposure to coronavirus.
- Meanwhile, South Africa is experiencing a “fourth wave” driven by the omicron variant and the country’s health minister is optimistic it can be managed with having to “invoke serious restrictions.”
- The World Health Organization announced that the measures approved for and deployed against delta will work against omicron as well.
- WHO officials used the familiar actions of vaccinations, masking, and social distancing to stop the spread of omicron.
- Global health officials have been spurred into action by omicron into speeding up work on a “global pandemic treaty” expected to be signed in May 2024.
- Vox broke down several critical data points from throughout the pandemic to help readers identify what to look for in determining how big of a threat omicron is.
- CNN reported on France’s recent cases having been detected in different regions of the European nation, quoting their health minister that “there is no alarm” at the moment while they study and collect more data on the variant.
- Huffington Post reported on Biden’s decision to extend the mask mandate for public transit.
- OANN characterized mainstream coverage of the omicron variant as “panic mode” while highlighting WHO calling omicron a “super mild variant.”
- Townhall reported on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson opining that omicron’s significance has little to do with the health implications but that Democrats will use the variant causing mild symptoms to expand the public health industrial complex’ surveillance powers.
- Newsmax highlighted comments from BioNTech’s CEO who said it shouldn’t take too long to create a vaccine adapted for omicron.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
