With vacation journey and extra household gatherings across the nook, specialists say including layers of safety towards COVID-19 is particularly necessary.
WASHINGTON — How can I defend myself from the brand new omicron variant?
The identical manner you guard towards COVID-19 brought on by some other variant: Get vaccinated for those who haven’t but, get a booster for those who’re eligible and step up different precautions you’ll have relaxed, like sporting a masks and avoiding crowds.
For all the eye omicron is getting, the overwhelming reason for infections and deaths in lots of locations stays the extra-contagious delta variant.
“Delta is the true danger proper now. Omicron is an unsure risk,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. Nationwide Institutes of Well being, informed The Related Press. Whatever the coronavirus sort, Collins mentioned “we do know what to do.”
It’ll take a number of weeks to study key features about this newest variant, together with whether or not it is extra contagious, causes extra extreme sickness or evades immunity — and in that case, how by a lot.
Within the meantime, “what we have to do is add extra layers of safety,” says Dr. Julie Vaishampayan of the Infectious Illnesses Society of America. That is particularly necessary with vacation journey and gatherings across the nook.
A booster shot is a type of layers. The added dose triggers a giant soar in virus-fighting antibodies. Even when the antibodies do not show fairly as efficient towards omicron as they’re towards different variants, merely having extra of them would possibly compensate — along with bolstering safety towards delta.
Along with masking, avoiding crowds and bettering air flow, testing is one other protecting step. That’s really helpful for anybody who has COVID-19 signs or was probably uncovered to the virus. But it surely additionally might assist guarantee security earlier than vacation gatherings, even when everybody attending has been vaccinated, Vaishampayan says.
