Just four days ago a new COVID variant called Omicron was reported to the World Health Organization. The variant was first found in South Africa and has since been identified in six European countries and Israel, Hong Kong, and Australia. The new variant raises questions. Is the vaccine effective at stopping this new variant? Will we be entering another time period of isolation due to this new variant? Will the spreading of this new variant motivate unvaccinated individuals to get vaccinated?
Since this variant was reported just a few days ago, not much is known about it.
I also recently learned about this and am concerned for what it might mean for the future. I hope that after having already gone through a lockdown and seeing how badly it impacted everyone, we will be better equipped to deal with this new variant and find ways other than long periods of isolation and being apart from our loved ones.
I think this blog post begs the questions that most of the world is asking at this moment. It feels like just as life starts to feel normal again, another variant is born. My hope is that with every variant that arises, more and more people will begin to recognize the important of vaccinations and the fact that we will never overcome the pandemic if we don’t collectively begin to concern ourselves with the wellbeing of others and how we can best behave to ensure that we are not only looking out for ourselves but our fellow neighbors as well.
I think this blog post raises a lot of important questions in this pandemic era. When I first heard about Omicron, I was worried about the possibility of returning to isolation, however, I do not believe that will happen. First of all, I do not think people are going to be willing to give up their freedom again. Isolation was very difficult for a lot of people and businesses and I cannot see people being ok with going back to that state. Second of all, I remember when we first heard about the Delta variant, we thought there would be a chance that we would go back into isolation again but that did not happen. Hopefully, people continue to get…
I wasn't aware of this new variant. We have adapted to a life now where many people don't go outside as much because of COVID, it really changed the way people live their lives. So I don't think there will be many adjustments people make to their lives. Like you said in your blog there is not much known so hopefully it doesn't affect us.
As we plunge further in to the COVID pandemic era we have come across many different variants and this Omicron variant is the new craze of COVID. A lot of unknowns come from this variant as it has only been in publicly known for about a week. We have already seen the Biden admin restrict travel from several African countries and the state of New York to declare a state of emergency. We need to determine the lethality of the variant before we enforce more closures that honestly will only make things worse, as they have shown to already to.