Highly contagious omicron is a roller coaster

Show Me the Science

The omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 arrived in the United States around Thanksgiving. Within a few weeks, it was the dominant variant in the country, and hospitals suddenly were crowded with COVID-19 patients again. More patients were hospitalized in the St. Louis region as the omicron wave hit than at any other time during the pandemic. The good news is that although there have been breakthrough infections in vaccinated people — even in those who received booster shots — omicron doesn’t make most quite as sick as earlier strains of the virus. Virologist and immunologist Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD, has found in animal studies that omicron does not attack lung tissue in the way prior strains did. Diamond also found that some of the monoclonal antibodies that worked as treatments for other strains of the coronavirus are not effective against omicron. The FDA recently withdrew its emergency use authorization for two of those antibodies, so they no longer can be used to treat COVID-19 patients. Diamond says that although omicron doesn’t make most people as sick as prior strains, it still makes many very sick and is deadly for some. And he says there’s no guarantee that future variants won’t evolve to be as infectious as omicron and as deadly as earlier strains.

The podcast, “Show Me the Science,” is produced by the Office of Medical Public Affairs at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.