EDITORIAL: Outlasting omicron

Published 1:00 pm Wednesday, January 19, 2022

The early days of the pandemic can seem impossibly distant today, so much has happened in the nearly two years since the word “coronavirus” made its unwelcome intrusion into the worldwide lexicon.

Vaccines and breakthrough cases.

The delta variant arrived last summer, then retreated through the fall, only to be supplanted by the currently dominant omicron variant.

But in one important sense, the situation that prevailed in the spring of 2020 remains utterly relevant now. The pool of people in the U.S. for whom COVID-19 presents a significant risk of severe illness or death is not particularly deep. And it’s even shallower now, in the era of omicron, than it was five months ago when delta was spreading rapidly.

Experts, including Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, emphasize that a growing body of evidence shows that omicron typically results in less serious symptoms, regardless of age. Most importantly, omicron is less likely to affect the lungs, leading to potentially fatal pneumonia.

Statistics reflect this lower level of virulence.

Although omicron, because it’s much more infectious than any previous variant, has led to record numbers of COVID-19 cases across the nation — including in Baker County — the numbers of people who have died or needed treatment in a hospital have not risen in proportion.

Even in the early stages of the pandemic, health officials recognized that the virus was vastly more lethal to the elderly and to people with compromised immune systems or other health issues such as obesity, diabetes or pulmonary problems.

Those groups remain the most vulnerable, although omicron is less dangerous to them than delta and earlier variants were.

Moreover, as Offit noted in a recent interview, people of all ages who are vaccinated — and in particular those who have had a booster dose — have strong protection from severe illness if they contract omicron. That variant is more likely to cause breakthrough cases in vaccinated people, to be sure, but people who have a breakthrough infection are unlikely to get seriously ill. Many likely will have few if any symptoms. As has been the case for more than a year, vaccination remains a potent weapon against the most serious effects of COVID-19. It’s unfortunate that Baker County has the fifth-lowest vaccination rate among Oregon’s 36 counties.

People who are infected, including those who are vaccinated, can potentially spread the virus to that small minority of people who are more vulnerable. And just as was the case during the onset of the pandemic, we can blunt the effects of COVID-19 by striving to minimize potential exposure to the virus in that population.

That means, among other things, that people who test positive need to be especially careful during the several days they’re potentially infectious, even though they probably will feel fine. This applies to children as well as adults. Children, who are even less vulnerable to severe illness from omicron than are healthy, vaccinated adults, are contributing greatly to the rapid rise in cases nationwide, with pediatric infections increasing by 78% the first week of January, according to American Academy of Pediatrics.

Quarantining, although a responsible precaution, has unfortunate effects, certainly, and ones we’re seeing now, as schools and businesses struggle to stay open due to worker shortages. But it’s far better that people stay home for a week, with at worst mild symptoms, than to increase to risk of infecting the relatively few among us who are at greater risk.

The positive news, besides the lower virulence of omicron, is that its rapid surge is likely to crest soon. Offit said in a recent interview that he expects the situation will improve considerably in a month or so.

In the meantime, omicron likely will continue to result in high case totals. But we have the ability to protect people who are at great risk, and the more successful we are, the more those numbers will be just statistics.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor