The rapid spread of the Omicron variant is increasing throughout the U.S., but holiday travel is still happening as travelers try to stick with plans to see friends and family over the holidays.
Travel hasn’t been recommended and some airlines said they are expecting flights to be even fuller than they were over Thanksgiving according to WBJ, when daily passenger volumes hit their highest levels since the start of the pandemic.
According to CDC, the Omicron variant is still under study to understand how it spreads and its infection severity. On its last statement, CDC said “People need to be vaccinated as we are learning and understanding Omicron variant”. Despite lot of study being conducted to understand the Omicron variant it has been noted that it spreads faster compared to the SARS-Cov-2 variants.
Omicron variant is affecting United States as a country in various ways. CDC showed various states have reported presence of Omicron variant. These states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, New York among many other states. In total, 44 states have reported cases of Omicron Variant and other remaining states are in danger of being exposed to the variant.
According to PBS news, United States is facing a double hit from the Covid-19 and Omicron variant. United States has already spent lot of money in buying life-saving tools to help the Covid-19 victims survive the severity of the disease and it has not yet recovered the money. With the immergence of Omicron variant, United States has already started to feel they are being disarmed of the life-saving tools which are very crucial in preventing many deaths of the Americans.
“Five states have been critically affected by the Omicron variant”, PBS news said. These states include New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Michigan, Minnesota, and Vermont. The number of people who have reported with the variant are over 100,000 people. The great impact in these states lead to more resources and help deployed in these states, something that affects the plans of the states to curb prevailing Covid-19 infections.
In Washington post report prepared by Heil and Carman, the restaurants are starting to face the dangers of being closed. In the recent discovery of a staff positive with Omicron variant in the Dean Rodrigue restaurant, led to its closure. This will be seen in various states and later almost all the restaurants will be closed. The harm will be losses from lack business going on in the restaurants. The closure might be long since it is hard to determine how fast the virus is spreading.
Dr Anthony Fauci, who is chief medical advisor for President Joe Biden said that “it is too early to judge the impact of the Omicron variant without more studies being done”. These studies will cost more money than the Covid-19 that costed billions of dollars to come up with a vaccine. The United States will have to review its budget to cater for more resources in the states to fight the Omicron variant.
Work cited
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/u-s-faces-double-coronavirus-surge-as-omicron-variant-spreads
https://www.who.int/news/item/28-11-2021-update-on-omicron
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/omicron-variant.html