Omicron is just 6 months old. It appeared as an entirely new strain of the virus not being related to the Alpha or Delta variants of COVID-19. Some researchers believe it may have infected mice and the strain and new variants blossomed in the mouse population before jumping back to infect humans.
The good new is that Omicron is less virulent than Delta which it replaced. Though less virulent, so many people became infected with Omicron all at once during the January spike, that it ultimately resulted in more deaths than from Delta.
Perhaps the fact that so many people have been infected has helped build up immunity. The trouble is that the immunity from infection and vaccination eventually wanes.
There are a lot of cases out there right now. The exact number is impossible to tell since testing sites across the country have been shut down and those who are infected take at home tests which are not counted or they don’t test at all.
Hospitalizations right now are lower than at any other time during the pandemic. Human nature is to say I am done with COVID when there is a perceived lull in cases. We have been here before, many times. However future variants combined with waning immunity may result in the next wave being much worse than what we are experiencing right now. This virus is unpredictable. Any forecasts done prior to January of 2022 would not have any idea about Omicron. It was a curve ball that came out of nowhere.
We can hope that Omicron continues to become less severe in the future, but hope is not a good foundation for public health policy. The White House has made statements that hint that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, but lets face it a pandemic isn’t great a president’s chances of re-election in mid term elections. On the other hand the White House warned of 100 million possible cases this fall and winter if the COVID funding package from Congress was not approved. Welcome to the strange world of mixed messaging.