The Chair of the South African Medical Association said the symptoms of the Omicron variant are unusual but mild.
“It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” the chair of the South African Medical Association told The Guardian.
Scientists are still waiting on more data to determine if Omicron poses a greater public health threat than Delta.
The world is on high alert, the markets are rattled, Fauci is in full gear, Biden is shutting down travel from 7 or 8 African countries.
Scientists are worried it might morph into something worse.
“It may be it’s highly transmissible, but so far the cases we are seeing are extremely mild,” Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, told The Guardian on Friday. “Maybe two weeks from now I will have a different opinion, but this is what we are seeing.”
Botswana’s health ministry also confirmed four Omicron cases among fully vaccinated travelers in a statement on Friday. The ministry didn’t specify whether the infected people had developed any symptoms, but the positive cases were detected as part of Botswana’s routine screening of incoming travelers.
“We don’t know yet if this new variant is out-competing Delta,” Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health, told Insider. “We also still don’t know if it will evade our vaccines yet, either.”
People who have been fully vaccinated and wear masks in public indoor settings shouldn’t feel compelled to change their behavior right now, she added.
“We really just need to hold tight to see how this plays out and what our next move is,” Jetelina said.
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