Well, Omicron continues to show its colors across the globe with case rates surging far beyond what we've seen with any previous waves, like in Denmark and the UK. Other countries, like France, the United States, and Canada have a recent explosion of cases pointing to the beginning of their Omicron wave. Places that put in country-wide restrictions, like the Netherlands and Germany, have altered their Omicron path thus far.
I think a lot of people are underestimating the effect of Omicron even if it is mild on staffing at hospitals and the resulting horrific effects on the public health system. If, on any given day, a significant % of health care workers are out for a week say with a mild case of Omicron....
Dec 22, 2021·edited Dec 22, 2021Liked by Katelyn Jetelina
There is so much talk about having a booster being so important to being fully protected, but what about the kids 5-11 who only recently got their shots? Or kids 12-15 who got shots months ago and are not approved for boosters? Are they considered protected? For how long, 2 months? 6 months? I feel like their level of protection will drop before they are approved for a booster. Is this concerning or not since they don't tend to get as sick?
On a daily basis, I am awed by the quality of the writing and amount of actionable insight in your posts. Its a model for modern analytics where experts collaborate across many public available datasets to distill real knowledge. I've been building analytics teams for 25+ years and this is some of the best work, maybe THE best, work I've ever seen.
I was curious about this line "By next week Omicron could easily account for 100% of cases". Does that imply Alpha and Delta will be gone? Or should I read that as "approaching 100%"?
I'm leaning toward basing our expectations more on the UK experience than the S. Africa experience. Part of this could be cultural bias, but I also think our healthcare systems are more similar to UK than SA. Thus, I'm leaning toward Omicron not being significantly less serious than Delta, and when coupled to its increased transmission rate will pose a significant loading problem to the healthcare system.
A recent article from CDC, based on a study in Iowa strongly indicates the benefit of masks in preventing or reducing spread; it's time for us to bite the bullet and mandate masks for all, and to define a minimum standard for what an adequate mask is (I'm leaning toward good-quality KN95, KN94 [Korean standard], or N95, as approved by NIOSH and OSHA; and, well-fitted, without leaks).
THANK YOU! I finally paid you today for this good work as a yearly subscriber. I appreciate you more than you know to give timely reliable guidance for my young children!
I’m so exhausted. I just canceled Christmas with family and I feel like I’m the only person in the world who has done this. I’m vaccinated and boosted and family is vaccinated but not boosted but the infection numbers are just so high that I’m still scared. Just saw a WaPo article where docs said we need to just move on if we are vaccinated but I just can’t get my head in that space. There’s no one to ask for advice and the experts are all over the place with recommendations.
Thank you...I rely on your emails for all my decision-making. You are amazing -- not only an exceptional science writer, but you are also so on top of the news. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your work. Question: I am totally lost about how to respond. Totally hunker down like it was March 2020 because my vaccine and booster are not enough? Or scale back on non-essential things and up the mask game to N95s, but allow my kids to continue with their indoor rock climbing team and school in 2 weeks? I can't figure out how to balance the impact on my kids' mental health of isolation with the risk of Omicron. I don't want to get sick and I live in Florida where it is "business as usual" and "every man for himself."
A very grateful, long-time reader here, Katelyn. I so appreciate your solid, scientific insight and empowering recommendations for how we can live safely and stay healthy in this unprecedented time.
I have one question: if someone received their first Pfizer mRNA vaccine in early July and their second Pfizer mRNA vaccine three weeks later in late July, are they eligible to be boosted now? From what I read on the CDC site, a booster is recommended 6 months after the second vaccine, which would mean this person needs a booster in late January?
The messaging in the media and in some medical sources is very confusing because they're giving a blanket statement to "Go get boosted." But there are millions of people who did not get their initial round of vaccines until later in summer or the fall. What does this mean for those folks?
Thank you again so much for your consistency, care and generosity here.
Our son received J & J and just received an MRNa booster. Am I reading this right that what may be needed is not a booster dose but a full series with an MRNa vaccine, i.e. he could now need two full shots? With you on the need for clarity re J & J. There are 14 million people out there and CDC needs to be much clearer about what they should do. Thank you!
Thank you so much for keeping us up to date. With so many people now testing and getting positive results for asymptomatic infections, I’d love to see a future post on how those people — and those who have been in close contact with them — should change their behavior. I recently learned, after being notified of a close contact exposure, that the CDC is *still* recommending people like me quarantine for 10 days, even though I’m boosted, have no symptoms, have had a negative PCR and multiple negative at-home Binax test results, and did not even spend much time with the infected person (who is also vaccinated and asymptomatic). I’m not going to quarantine for 10 days, but I also can’t get any guidance on what I *should* be doing. I’d love a future post on advice on this topic!
Denmark: 89.6% of Omicron cases are double or triple vaccinated with the unvaxed being 8.5%, contrast that to other all other variants 73% double or triple vaxxed, unvaxed 23.8%. It would seem that Omicron prefers the vaccinated by a wide margin, why?
I’m also curious why you would include a model that assumes Omicron is more severe than Delta when there is no evidence to that effect. It feels like disaster porn.
I was puzzled by how CDC determined that 73% of US cases were Omicron it turns out that is a model-based estimate with a wide CI. I hope you point that out to readers if you haven't done so.
Love, love, love your newsletter. Thank you. Please comment on the use of Evusheld monoclonal antibody treatment for immunocompromised people who can’t develop antibodies with the vaccine or booster. Is there any indication of when it might become available? It is very hard to be vaccinated and boostered, yet still have 0 antibodies. I feel like a ticking time bomb.
I think a lot of people are underestimating the effect of Omicron even if it is mild on staffing at hospitals and the resulting horrific effects on the public health system. If, on any given day, a significant % of health care workers are out for a week say with a mild case of Omicron....
There is so much talk about having a booster being so important to being fully protected, but what about the kids 5-11 who only recently got their shots? Or kids 12-15 who got shots months ago and are not approved for boosters? Are they considered protected? For how long, 2 months? 6 months? I feel like their level of protection will drop before they are approved for a booster. Is this concerning or not since they don't tend to get as sick?
On a daily basis, I am awed by the quality of the writing and amount of actionable insight in your posts. Its a model for modern analytics where experts collaborate across many public available datasets to distill real knowledge. I've been building analytics teams for 25+ years and this is some of the best work, maybe THE best, work I've ever seen.
I was curious about this line "By next week Omicron could easily account for 100% of cases". Does that imply Alpha and Delta will be gone? Or should I read that as "approaching 100%"?
I'm leaning toward basing our expectations more on the UK experience than the S. Africa experience. Part of this could be cultural bias, but I also think our healthcare systems are more similar to UK than SA. Thus, I'm leaning toward Omicron not being significantly less serious than Delta, and when coupled to its increased transmission rate will pose a significant loading problem to the healthcare system.
A recent article from CDC, based on a study in Iowa strongly indicates the benefit of masks in preventing or reducing spread; it's time for us to bite the bullet and mandate masks for all, and to define a minimum standard for what an adequate mask is (I'm leaning toward good-quality KN95, KN94 [Korean standard], or N95, as approved by NIOSH and OSHA; and, well-fitted, without leaks).
THANK YOU! I finally paid you today for this good work as a yearly subscriber. I appreciate you more than you know to give timely reliable guidance for my young children!
I’m so exhausted. I just canceled Christmas with family and I feel like I’m the only person in the world who has done this. I’m vaccinated and boosted and family is vaccinated but not boosted but the infection numbers are just so high that I’m still scared. Just saw a WaPo article where docs said we need to just move on if we are vaccinated but I just can’t get my head in that space. There’s no one to ask for advice and the experts are all over the place with recommendations.
Brilliant as always. Thank you.
Thank you...I rely on your emails for all my decision-making. You are amazing -- not only an exceptional science writer, but you are also so on top of the news. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your work. Question: I am totally lost about how to respond. Totally hunker down like it was March 2020 because my vaccine and booster are not enough? Or scale back on non-essential things and up the mask game to N95s, but allow my kids to continue with their indoor rock climbing team and school in 2 weeks? I can't figure out how to balance the impact on my kids' mental health of isolation with the risk of Omicron. I don't want to get sick and I live in Florida where it is "business as usual" and "every man for himself."
A very grateful, long-time reader here, Katelyn. I so appreciate your solid, scientific insight and empowering recommendations for how we can live safely and stay healthy in this unprecedented time.
I have one question: if someone received their first Pfizer mRNA vaccine in early July and their second Pfizer mRNA vaccine three weeks later in late July, are they eligible to be boosted now? From what I read on the CDC site, a booster is recommended 6 months after the second vaccine, which would mean this person needs a booster in late January?
The messaging in the media and in some medical sources is very confusing because they're giving a blanket statement to "Go get boosted." But there are millions of people who did not get their initial round of vaccines until later in summer or the fall. What does this mean for those folks?
Thank you again so much for your consistency, care and generosity here.
Our son received J & J and just received an MRNa booster. Am I reading this right that what may be needed is not a booster dose but a full series with an MRNa vaccine, i.e. he could now need two full shots? With you on the need for clarity re J & J. There are 14 million people out there and CDC needs to be much clearer about what they should do. Thank you!
Any word on boosters for 12-15 year olds? It has been 6 months for mine.
Thank you so much for keeping us up to date. With so many people now testing and getting positive results for asymptomatic infections, I’d love to see a future post on how those people — and those who have been in close contact with them — should change their behavior. I recently learned, after being notified of a close contact exposure, that the CDC is *still* recommending people like me quarantine for 10 days, even though I’m boosted, have no symptoms, have had a negative PCR and multiple negative at-home Binax test results, and did not even spend much time with the infected person (who is also vaccinated and asymptomatic). I’m not going to quarantine for 10 days, but I also can’t get any guidance on what I *should* be doing. I’d love a future post on advice on this topic!
Denmark: 89.6% of Omicron cases are double or triple vaccinated with the unvaxed being 8.5%, contrast that to other all other variants 73% double or triple vaxxed, unvaxed 23.8%. It would seem that Omicron prefers the vaccinated by a wide margin, why?
I’m also curious why you would include a model that assumes Omicron is more severe than Delta when there is no evidence to that effect. It feels like disaster porn.
I was puzzled by how CDC determined that 73% of US cases were Omicron it turns out that is a model-based estimate with a wide CI. I hope you point that out to readers if you haven't done so.
Love, love, love your newsletter. Thank you. Please comment on the use of Evusheld monoclonal antibody treatment for immunocompromised people who can’t develop antibodies with the vaccine or booster. Is there any indication of when it might become available? It is very hard to be vaccinated and boostered, yet still have 0 antibodies. I feel like a ticking time bomb.