Omicron is Not the Same Virus We Saw A Year Ago

The omicron variant makes up 73% of Covid infections diagnosed in the U.S. With a name like omicron and the subsequent media coverage, Americans are understandably uneasy. But the context is less dire than our leaders acknowledge.

A leading immunologist in the United Kingdom found that omicron is "not the same disease we were seeing a year ago." Sir John Bell said while omicron is highly transmissible, its impact is not comparable to the previous variants'.

George Eustice, a UK environment secretary, then adds that the spread of omicron does not result in the same hospital admissions as previous waves, making Covid death rates, in Bell's words, "now history."

"There is early encouragement from what we know in South Africa that you have fewer hospitalisations and that the number of days that they stay in hospital if they do go into hospital is also lower than in previous variants," Eustice told the BBC.

These statements raise questions about the need to obsessively build headlines around daily cases, as the U.S. media does. The truth is, daily cases will continue to rise. They aren't going away.

But what do these cases mean? Is there any evidence that we should treat cases of the omicron variant any differently than a cold or flu? Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, can't find any evidence.

"This is a disease that's not going away. Ultimately, we're going to have to let people who are positive with Covid go about their normal lives as they would do with any other cold," he says.

"If the self-isolation rules are what's making the pain associated with Covid, then we need to do that perhaps sooner rather than later. Maybe not quite just yet.

"Covid is only one virus of a family of coronaviruses, and the other coronaviruses throw off new variants typically every year or so, and that's almost certainly what's going to happen with Covid. It will become effectively just another cause of the common cold."

Such a suggestion sounds obvious and reasonable. At this point, we have to seriously wonder what's the end game with Covid. How will we ever return to normalcy if our government and media portray such a mild variant like the plague?

If we treat every new variant -- and there will be more, many more -- like the original wave of Covid-19, we will never reach normalcy. It won't happen.

While overwhelming evidence says omicron is not a threat to mankind and that vaccines are hardly a solution to end Covid, lying frauds like Dr. Fauci continue to tell us otherwise. So I guess we should all shut up, get maybe a fourth Covid shot, sit home, and pray we don't catch something that may resemble the formidable seasonal flu.