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20 Healthy Recipes to Make When It Seems Like Everyone’s Sick
Why So Many People Are Testing Positive for Omicron Right Now
On January 10 alone, more than 1.3 million Americans tested positive, according todata from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s 0.4% of the country’s total population. (In. One. Day.) Even with about 75% of Americans vaccinated, breakthrough cases are becoming super common since the omicron variant is so rampant and spreads so easily. Omicron is responsible for 98.3% of new COVID-19 cases in the United States last week, perCDC estimates shared on Tuesday.
Abroad, people and hospitals are getting hit hard as well. TheWorld Health Organization estimatesthat 50% of Europeans will contract the coronavirus within the next two months if cases continue on their current trend.
Since omicron seems to be less severe than previous variants, some health pros are wondering if it may continue evolving into weaker strains and eventually become like today’s commoncold and flu. Still, it’s tough to rest easy when78% of the country’s ICU bedsare full andthousands of Americansare dying each day.
Will We Ever Reach “Herd Immunity” with COVID?
With omicron taking over the country and the world, is it possible that this tidal wave of cases could lead to that “herd immunity” we’ve been talking about since the beginning of this pandemic?
“Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody,” Anthony Fauci, M.D., the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Tuesday. “Those who have been vaccinated … and boosted would get exposed. Some, maybe a lot of them, will get infected but will very likely, with some exceptions, do reasonably well in the sense of not having hospitalization and death.”
On the flip side, the unvaccinated are “going to get the brunt of the severe aspect of this,” Fauci added.
FromJune through September, for example, those who were unvaccinated accounted for 85% of total COVID-19 hospitalizations (with vaccinated people making up the other 15%; and vaccinated stays were generally shorter).
What Is ‘Flurona’? COVID-19 and Flu Co-Infections, Explained
Pretty much all of us will have an encounter with someone who has COVID-19 at some point,Elizabeth Connick, M.D., the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Arizona tellsHealthline.
“We have some evidence that the vaccine not only protects people from symptoms but also provides some protection from infection. Research says that each person who gets an infection will expose this virus to 10 more people. Theoretically, several scenarios are possible,” Connick adds.
The Bottom Line
“I think it’s premature to say anything too specific. We need more data on how much immunity it generates and how protective it is against getting it again,” Connick tellsHealthline.
For now, we all need to keepmasking up, testing and isolating when exposed or symptomatic and doing our best to keep ourselves, our family members and all we pass as safe as possible, the health experts confirm. If you, too, come down with coronavirus, here are thebest foods and drinksto load up on to bounce back.
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