Don't Be Surprised When You Get Omicron America is in for a lot more breakthrough infections. Here'

[riversedge]

I first read the title as--IF instead of When. I do think we can try our best to mitigate the catching of the virus even when fully vaccinated, but it seems it is so smart.

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Don’t Be Surprised When You Get Omicron

America is in for a lot more breakthrough infections. Here’s what to do if you fall sick.



By Yasmin Tayag The Atlantic


December 15, 2021

My breakthrough infection started with a scratchy throat just a few days before Thanksgiving. Because I’m vaccinated, and had just tested negative for COVID-19 two days earlier, I initially brushed off the symptoms as merely a cold. Just to be sure, I got checked again a few days later. Positive. The result felt like a betrayal after 18 months of reporting on the pandemic. And as I walked home from the testing center, I realized that I had no clue what to do next.

I had so many questions: How would I isolate myself in a shared apartment? And why for 10 days, like the doctor at the testing site had advised? Should I get tested again? Following the doctor’s orders, my partner—who had tested negative—dragged a sleeping bag to the couch. Masks came on, windows went up, and flights were canceled. I ate flavorless dinners on my side of the apartment. One by one, the symptoms I knew so well on paper made their real-life debut: cough, fever, fatigue, and a loss of smell so severe, I couldn’t detect my dog’s habitually fishy breath.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one feeling baffled about what to do. “Oh yeah, people are very confused about breakthrough cases,” Peter Chin-Hong, an expert on infectious diseases at UC San Francisco, told me. Now that the Omicron variant is here, many more Americans may soon have to deal with breakthrough confusion. There’s a lot we don’t know about the new variant, but it’s spreading fast. Although the unvaccinated remain most at risk, vaccinated America isn’t in the clear: While the shots still seem effective at preventing hospitalization and death, early reports suggest that they are less effective against milder cases. So if you do get a breakthrough infection right now, what should you do?

Read: The pandemic of the vaccinated is here

At least for now, Omicron shouldn’t change how Americans act when they get a breakthrough infection. “All of the same things stand, whether it’s Delta, Omicron, or any other Greek letter or non-Greek letter of SARS-CoV-2,” says Stephen Kissler, an epidemiologist at Harvard. “Once you know you’re infected, hang tight, limit your encounters with other people, and just take care of yourself.”............................

[StarryNite]

1. We need to hunker down as much as possible.

The less we go out, the fewer people we encounter the better our chances are of not getting it. But that's not an easy thing for everyone to be able to do. We need readily available, inexpensive rapid tests, sooner rather than later.

[riversedge]

2. I have hunkered down this past week or so. Yes, I am scared.

[StarryNite]

4. I'm scared too.

[ChazII]

3. Staying by myself as

much as possible. For me it is just a matter of when as I do volunteer work each Wednesday morning at a local foodbank. Masks are required but I have an Eeyore mindset - it is just a matter of time. I have had Pfizer shots and a Pfizer booster.

[2naSalit]

5. The thing I wanted to know most was...

What ro do about treating symptoms. The article suggests using the usual cold/flu treatments for breakout cases but do seek help for the serious symptoms like shortness of breath, etc..