They’re Back: In Face of Omicron, Hand Hygiene, Social Distancing, Masking Needed
The World Health Organization warns that vaccines alone won’t protect health care systems from being swamped.
As long as COVID-19 can mutate into different strains—scientists around the world scramble to get a better reading about Omicron, which nobody had even heard of a month ago—social distancing, hand hygiene, and masking will apparently always be the old reliables.
The latest—but still far from definitive—clinical data show that Omicron presents with less severe symptoms than previous variants, including the for-now dominant Delta. The preliminary data also show that vaccines are effective to some degree (scientists are still measuring just how much) against Omicron. But as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the general director of the World Health Organization (WHO), put it during a
Saskia v. Popescu, PHD, MPH, MA, CIC, a member of Infection Control Today®’s (ICT®’s) Editorial Advisory Board, says that the double threat from Omicron and Delta demonstrates why infection preventionists and other health care professionals on the frontlines can never let their guard down. “Our attention to Omicron should not diminish the continued threat of Delta, but rather serve as a reminder that in infection prevention, we must face and prepare for future infectious disease challenges,” Popescu said.
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