Don’t dismiss Omicron variant of COVID as a mild illness: Dr. Henry | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Don’t dismiss Omicron variant of COVID as a mild illness: Dr. Henry

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This is not the time to casually take the Omicron variant of COVID-19 as just a mild illness, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry warned during a news briefing, Jan. 18.

“The data has shown that, up until now and even with Omicron, about one in 10 people will have symptoms that will last for 12 weeks or longer,” she said. “That’s a long time to be seriously ill.”

There are certain groups that are more likely to get seriously ill. Those include people over 70 who don’t have as strong an immune response to vaccines as younger people and may have underlying health conditions. Very young children who are not yet vaccinated can get very ill as can those with compromised immune systems or who are unvaccinated.

READ MORE: Fitness centres, gyms allowed to re-open in B.C. on Thursday

And the vaccines, even with three shots, are not 100% effective.

Data that Dr. Henry presented last week showed that 7% of new COVID cases and 12% of hospitalizations during the month from Dec. 10 to Jan. 11 were in people who had three doses of vaccine.

They also make up 7% of those in intensive care and 14% of those who die.

Data is not yet available on the B.C. Centre for Disease Control website to break that down by age group for the entire period, but for the first two weeks of that four-week time frame 67.5% of people who died were over the age of 70.

That left 17.5% who were 60 to 69 years old who died, 10% who were 50 to 59 and 5% who were 40 to 49 years old.

“We really need to pay attention,” Dr. Henry said. “I think there’s a narrative around right now that Omicron is mild and many of us have experienced this. We know people who have become sick with it and they’ve recovered. While, with this new wave, the individual risk may have decreased for many, particularly if you’re younger, healthy and vaccinated, Omicron can and is still causing serious illness in many.”


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