The Omicron Variant

In December of 2019 the worldwide spread of the CoronaVirus began. It wasn’t dealt with until 2020 but it affected everybody in the United States and people in other countries. It caused children to go to school at home, not being able to get the right education for the most part of 2020. It also caused adults to be laid off from their jobs, careers and they had a hard time getting back onto their feet. Towards the end of the school year in 2020, children were able to go to school but had to be wearing face masks. It was difficult since they weren’t in school for so long and weren’t used to wearing face masks. Some kids just stayed home to avoid being sick and their parents thought it was the best thing they could do. It was still hard for adults to get jobs but not as difficult as it was when COVID-19 was first introduced to everyone.

In 2021, the virus was under control for the most part since a majority of people were getting the vaccine. People were about to go places without masks and worrying about getting infected by others. They were able to have that fear lifted from their shoulders since now they were vaccinated and didn’t need to worry about that. But there were some people who were against the vaccine. Some said it was against their religion and others had conspiracy theories that the government was trying to poison them. Fortunately, the government was only trying to help the people in our nation. Towards the end of the year, the Omicron variant came into existence. As if there wasn’t enough to deal with, Omicron is said to be detected in most states and territories. It originated from South America and it is also spreading rapidly from person to person. Omicron is a variant of COVID-19, similar to the Delta. It does do some things that the original virus can’t. Like it can spread to people with the vaccine and it spreads much faster than COVID-19 itself. Scientists still can’t figure out why that is. “Current vaccinations are expected to protect against severe illness hospitalizations and deaths due to infection with the Omicron variant” CDC.gov says. However, breakthrough infections may happen to people that are indeed fully vaccinated.

There are indeed scientists working on how the variant is spreading but there are also people from different websites, news articles, and many other companies trying to help out. For example,the World Health Organization stated:, “At the present time, WHO is coordinating with a large number of researchers around the world to better understand Omicron.” So there must be hundreds and hundreds of people trying to get down to the bottom of where and how this variant is being spread.

It is not yet clear if the disease can be transmitted to others from person to person or if it’s just a climate change thing. It may take less time for the infection to spread to people. It is said to move faster than Covid and the Delta variant. Scientists are still trying to figure it out but they haven’t found anything that they didn’t already know. It is also said that Omicron acts more like bronchitis rather than pneumonia. When people go to the doctors, the doctors usually see the normal symptoms of Covid-19. Sore throat, runny nose, fatigue, and mild headaches. So they aren’t too sure what this new variant will be able to do to the people that do end up catching it.