| What's Up With Me
We now have much more information on Omicron, and it’s something I’m really worried about. Omicron has taken over in the US and is much more infectious than Delta. The effectiveness of the Pfizer two-shot vaccine against Omicron is only 33%. That means Omicron is much more capable of escaping vaccines and natural immunity. A Pfizer booster vaccine increases protection to about 75%. Still, surveys show that
Omicron has had very little impact on the willingness of Americans to get a booster, or even get a first vaccine dose. Given that evidence, scientists strongly believe that a major winter wave of Omicron is coming in the US.
The only silver lining is that Omicron, so far, appears to cause a milder illness than Delta. Yet the World Health Organization has warned about the “mildness” narrative. It noted that the unvaccinated – or those vaccinated who are older
or have underlying health conditions and don’t have a booster – are still at risk for severe disease and death. The much faster disease transmission and vaccine escape undercut the less severe overall nature of Omicron. That’s why hospitals have a large probability of being overwhelmed, as the Center for Disease Control warned.
Based on these concerns, I got a booster a
week ago, it should kick in fully in another week. I’m also taking many more precautions. It’s tragic that the pandemic is not winding down, but is ramping up. But I definitely want to avoid the confirmation bias problem of simply looking for information that I want to see and ignoring information that doesn’t fit my beliefs.
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