Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that the Omicron variant, the latest major variant of the coronavirus, is in fifty countries and nineteen U.S. states. 

“While we are still working to understand the severity of omicron as well as how it responds to therapeutics and vaccines, we anticipate that all of the same measures will at least, in part, provide some protection against omicron,” Walensky said during a White House briefing on the coronavirus.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients added that the U.S. administered 12.5 million shots, more than half of them boosters, in the last week, the highest weekly total since May of this year.

As for the trajectory of the new variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the same briefing that data will likely be available by next week about how well the current vaccines hold up against the new variant. 

Fauci said during the briefing that while early reports from South Africa indicate that the new variant leads to more mild illness, it’s also true that much of the cohort of those infected so far in that country is younger. Many people who have become infected had already been infected by the previous variants and recovered.

Meanwhile, also Tuesday, CNN looked at the reports that Omicron cases in South Africa have been milder, concluding that while it’s too soon to tell, there are positive indicators.

The news network cited a pre-print study stating that the Omicron variant “carries a portion of genetic material that’s very similar to segments seen in one of the types of coronaviruses that causes the common colds,” which is an indicator that the new variant might resemble a “nuisance virus” more than something deadlier. 

However, multiple experts told CNN that it’s too soon to reach any conclusions.  

“Even assuming the insert came from a common cold virus—that’s very dicey—it probably would not make it more like the common cold virus,” Robert Garry a virologist at Tulane University’s medical school, told CNN.  

The other warning from doctors and other experts is that severe illness takes time to develop, the new variant was only spotted less than two weeks ago.  

“There’s a distinction between hopeful and reality. It’s good to hope but it is much too early to conclude that Omicron only produces mild infections. We don’t have those data," William Schaffner, medical director at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University, told CNN. He added that “Covid has thrown us several curveballs.”  

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for the National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver. 

Image: Reuters