Omicron variant is surging as the holidays arrive. Should you adjust travel plans?
Christmas is four days away. New Year’s Day is 11. And a rapid spread in cases of the new omicron variant, combined with ongoing COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant, is upending events and travel plans in parts of the U.S.
In Idaho, which is still recovering from its worst period of the pandemic earlier this fall, cases have yet to spike. But it’s better to be cautious and prepared, a prominent doctor said.
During a moderated panel with the Idaho Statesman, Dr. David Pate, the former president of St. Luke’s Health System, said the omicron threat doesn’t necessarily require people to change their plans, but it should make people more careful about their arrangements and destinations.
In Idaho, only one case of omicron has been officially confirmed, according to the Department of Health and Welfare. But evidence of the coronavirus variant has been found in the wastewater in Moscow, and it almost certainly is already spreading in the state. On Monday, new modeling projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that 73% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. the week of Dec. 12 were caused by omicron.
New York has hit record levels of daily cases multiple days in a row, prompting concerns about how rapidly omicron spreads, the incoming strain on the nation’s hospital systems and a rush for testing.
Though data are still preliminary, many health experts believe that omicron spreads significantly faster than the delta variant did and is also able to evade some of the protection afforded by vaccinations and prior infections. Health experts, however, still say that the vaccines — especially when buoyed by booster shots — provide powerful protection against severe illness and death.
The severity of the disease caused by the new variant is still unclear, but Dr. Christine Hahn, Idaho’s state epidemiologist, told the Statesman on Friday that it “does not appear to be any worse than delta.”
Pate identified four questions that holiday travelers should ask themselves.
- What are the risks to yourself and your own family members?
- What are the risks of those you’re going to be with?
- What is the level of disease activity wherever you are traveling?
- How are you going to protect yourself during those travels if that involves public transportation?
The CDC provides county-level data on current disease transmission in communities across the country. Omicron has been identified in every U.S. state except Oklahoma and South Dakota.
Pate identified other things for travelers to consider:
“... If you’re traveling somewhere where there’s currently a high level of disease transmission, you need to also go further to check: Are those hospitals there overwhelmed? Because you need to have a plan if you’re traveling and, especially taking a child, sometimes children just get hurt. It doesn’t have to be COVID. But where would you go? Would hospitals even be available for you?”
Those traveling with people who are older, immunocompromised, unvaccinated or without a booster shot just need to be especially careful, Pate said.
“There are just a lot of factors to take into consideration. We want people to enjoy their families, but we also don’t want any bad outcomes of that as well,” he said.
This story was originally published December 21, 2021 at 5:12 PM.
