JUDY WOODRUFF: As the Omicron variant
is spreading rapidly, top federal health
officials warn it could bring a
massive wave of new infections
to the U.S. as early as January.
John Yang has our report.
JOHN YANG: Judy, there are now confirmed
cases of Omicron in at least 36 states.
The CDC estimates the new
variant represents about 3
percent of positive U.S. cases.
Dr. Saad Omer is an epidemiologist
and the director of the Yale
Institute for Global Health.
Dr. Omer, thanks so
much for being with us.
Given what we know about Omicron,
or, maybe more important, what
we don't know, how concerned
should people be about it, and how
-- and should we expect Omicron
to become the dominant strain?
DR. SAAD OMER, Director, Yale
Institute for Global Health:
So, here's what we know.
We know that it is a highly
infectious strain. We know that
it evades immunity, especially
by two doses of the vaccines
we use, but we also know that
it responds to three doses.
So people have better protection
with three doses of vaccine.
What we don't know is how severe
it will be. So there are two
ways of looking at severity. You
look at severity at the individual
level. It seems there are very
early signals that there may be
sort of at least the same or
less severity per infection.
But at the population level,
if something is more infectious,
it's three times more infectious
and half as severe, it will still
produce more hospitalizations.
So I'm just giving you an
example, so there - - that, from
a public health perspective,
public health authorities
should absolutely be on alert.
From individual perspectives, we
have a lot of self-efficacy. We
can -- we're not helpless in the
face of this new variant. We
can get vaccinated and boosted.
We can take other precautions
in the interest of public health
and personal protection, like
testing before gatherings,
including family gatherings,
like wearing masks, like having
good ventilation, et cetera.
JOHN YANG: Given what you said,
that it may be more contagious,
but less severe, but that
will still result in a lot of
hospitalizations, how worried
are you about what apparently the
CDC talks about as the worst-case
scenario, the triple whammy of
Omicron, Delta and seasonal flu?
DR. SAAD OMER: We may see a mixed picture.
Influenza, this is a season
where people are mixing. So,
for the last couple of seasons,
what has happened is, especially
last season, there was a lot
of social distancing that
people had due to COVID. Therefore, you
didn't get that big a wave of influence.
So, it is a possibility, but
it's not a certainty. So there is
some stochasticity. So, there is
an element of chance still
there. We are still learning
about this variant, but also,
again, as I said, we are not helpless
bystanders in the face of this virus.
JOHN YANG: You have talked and
written a lot about misinformation,
about the role of misinformation
in what's going on. What's your
prescription to fight that?
DR. SAAD OMER: Well, that's
a really good question.
So, I think the prescription to
fight that is, first of all, at the
overall government level,
there are a lot -- a lot of
interventions governments can do,
including the U.S. government. There's a
really nice surgeon general's report that
actually lays out a road
map for responding to
misinformation and disinformation
at various levels, from the federal
to the state to the local government.
So, without going into the details of that
report, that's a good recipe for that.
At the individual level, what we can
do is, for our friends and family,
to make sure that they have
access to the right information.
So, the second thing is,
we should be argumentative. The
third thing is, we should lead
with facts and empathy, rather than
our instinct to correct the
disinformation and, by doing so,
repeating the disinformation.
And then the last thing is to have a long
engagement with our loved ones who have
misinformation or disinformation
readily accessible, rather
than the expectation that,
in one righteous conversation,
we're going to convert people
to the cause of vaccination and
actually sort of remove them all to the
- - from the all the exposure they have
to misinformation and disinformation
around COVID and vaccines specifically.
JOHN YANG: Dr. Saad Omer of
the Yale Institute for Global
Health, thank you very much.
DR. SAAD OMER: My pleasure.