Well, so much for those “Omicold” claims

Wesley Long, a doctor of microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital, tweeted with a graph:

Sunday Update: The Omicron variant is now in Houston in full force, accounting for 82% of new symptomatic Houston Methodist #COVID-19 cases as of earlier this week. #Omicron became the cause of the supermajority of new Houston Methodist cases in less than three weeks. Compare the rise of #Omicron in Houston to that of #Delta over the summer, which took about 3 months to surpass 80% after initial detection. #Omicron in our data has a doubling time of 2.2 days.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Forbes:

Well, so much for those “Omicold” claims about the Omicron variant. The Omicron variant of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is certainly not the same as the common cold. While the jury’s still out on how virulent the Omicron variant may be, this new variant is proving that it can hospitalize and kill people, which is not what the common cold does. Today, the U.K. Health Security Agency reported that there have already been seven deaths and 85 hospitalizations related to the Omicron variant in the U.K. as of December 16.

Dr. Tom Friedman, former director of the CDC, tweeted a thread. Here’s part of it:

Think of it this way. Omicron is 2-3x more infectious than Delta. 80% of people in the US have NOT received a booster dose—more than 250 million people. There are likely to be tens of millions of Omicron infections in the coming months in the US. Even if Omicron is less severe, unless it’s LOTS less severe, it could double the current already-high US death rate to 2,000/day or more by mid-February. There’s a major risk that hospitals will be overwhelmed in the next two months. Bottom line: Omicron is still Covid, it’s still capable of doing damage to your body. And it’s still capable of overwhelming our health systems. It’s shaping up to be a hard winter. Get vaccinated and boosted ASAP.

Ryam Struyk of CNN tweeted:

Latest CDC data by vaccine status: Unvaccinated: 451 cases per 100k Vaccinated: 134 cases per 100k Boosted: 48 cases per 100k Unvaccinated: 6.1 deaths per 100k Vaccinated: 0.5 deaths per 100k Boosted: 0.1 deaths per 100k

Blondish replied:

And the anti-vaxxers see 6 deaths out of 100,000 and shrug thinking their odds are really good so why bother getting vaccinated. This messaging won’t help us.

That messaging may not help us, though I add: 6 deaths per 100K in Michigan means 600 deaths (the state population is just over 10 million). And 45,100 cases in Michigan means overwhelmed hospitals so good luck getting good treatment for your heart attack. Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote that omicron is coming for Red America. The states with Republican leadership and low vaccine rates can’t to react to the speed at which omicron spreads. It is already too late. There is five weeks from the first vaccine dose to the first level of protection and another six months until the booster. Since omicron is still COVID and many have come down with long COVID ... McElrath tweeted:

I fear we are witnessing the largest mass disabling event in history. We are not prepared for this many people becoming chronically ill. Some will even become disabled for life. The potential impact is almost unfathomable.

El Arroyo Restaurant in Austin, Texas put on their marquee:

When U realize 2022 is pronounced 2020 too.

That prompted me to look up the name and I found their marquee and its changing one-liners is quite the thing in the area. Here’s a link to a collection of 50 of them. One of them is:

You smell great! What hand sanitizer are you wearing?