Omicron Madness: Panic and Overreactions Slowly Give Way to Some Sanity

Those preoccupied during Thanksgiving weekend with family, food, and football may be confused about a sudden global panic over a new COVID-19 variant

Thankfully, some of the hysteria already is subsiding among folks more inclined to live in reality than perpetual fear.

The mutation, first detected in South Africa, can potentially spread more quickly than other variants and evade protections provided by both natural and vaccine-provided antibodies, the World Health Organization warned.

This caused the stock market to suffer its biggest one-day percentage decline since February. The Biden administration rushed to impose a travel ban on a multiple African nations, even though cases have also been detected in Canada and Europe.

Spoiler alert, #Omicron is already in the United States. It may even partially explain why cases have plateaued rather than fallen.

It will be confirmed once the U.S. adequately sequences enough positive cases – something the U.S. has lagged on throughout the entire pandemic.

— Nicole Saphier, MD (@NBSaphierMD) November 29, 2021

New York’s appalling new governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency Saturday and suspended elective surgeries in a brazen overreaction.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that a new round of lockdowns could be necessary and bizarrely claimed he “represents science.”

But by Sunday, the rhetoric was toned down on the coverage of the “Omicron” variant.

The chair of South Africa’s Medical Association told the BBC the globe was “panicking unnecessarily.” The Omicron patients she had first-hand experience with presented “very, very mild symptoms.” None required dramatic interventions, and all were treated at home. South Africa’s health minister confirmed that the “majority” of Omicron infections they’re “seeing are mild.”

“If it continues this way,” Dror Mevorach, head of the coronavirus department at Hadassah University Hospital in Israel, said, “this might be a relatively mild illness compared to the delta variant, and paradoxically, if it takes over, it will lead to lower infection rates.”

“We know almost nothing about the Omicron variant,” a headline from the left-leaning Atlantic read.

“And the long list of variants that at first frightened the world before falling off the map can be a reminder that viruses are unpredictable,” CNN explained Monday afternoon.

“It’s highly likely that vaccines will provide protection as they do against delta,” former assistant health secretary Admiral Brett Giroir told “Special Report” Monday night. “This will be endemic. We can live with this, and we are going to have to.”

“There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants,” a Sunday statement from the WHO said in part.

"We don’t yet know whether Omicron is associated with more:
-transmission
-severe #COVID19 disease
-risk of reinfections
-risk of evading vaccines.
Scientists at WHO & around the 🌍 are working urgently to answer these questions"-@DrTedros #WHASpecial https://t.co/FDFXHLYyfn

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) November 29, 2021

Even President Joe Biden, while again urging all Americans to get vaccines and boosters Monday, downplayed immediate panic.

“We’re going to fight and beat this new variant today,” Biden, who seems as or more concerned with his legislative agenda, claimed. But “not with shutdowns or lockdowns…this variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.”

So, panic was the knee-jerk response of many in power and progressives who reside in the parochial urban corridors. That is because panic is the preferred lifestyle choice among an influential, insular few.

They do not mind business closures, paid pandemic vacations, soaring inflation, unconstitutional evictions moratoria, and a move back to anti-child, anti-science remote learning.

These neurotic displays are not a measured response to a 22-month old global health crisis. Conceptually, the public health elites know this, but emotionally they are wedded to eradicating coronavirus, which was never possible, despite what Biden claimed.

Sadly, those purveying panic and misinformation maintain outsized influence over the dissemination of misinformation and fear.