There are now five cases of the Omicron variant in Australia, but there’s a fair chance it might not be the stressy mess we thought it was gonna be.
This morning, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews and Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly held a presser where they clarified a bunch of Omicron points.
The health minister’s main message was that we should act with “an abundance of caution” while our health nerds try to “analyse and understand the full nature of the Omicron variant”.
They also spoke about yesterday’s decision to postpone incoming flights carrying migrants, workers, international students and refugees until the 15th of December which we reported on yesterday.
Mr Hunt said that those cancellations were “done on the presumption that we will recommence (those inbound flights)” and that the “medical advice will guide our decision making throughout”.
*breathes cautious sigh of half-relief*
The spicier part of the presser involved clarifications on the new strain.
Professor Kelly said that there were several unknowns when it came to Omicron.
“We don’t know still about the vaccine effectiveness; we don’t know about severity,” he said.
As for the demographic of current cases in Australia, Kelly clarified that “they are young, they are doubly vaccinated, several have had infection previously, and have very mild or in fact no disease”.
*more cautious sighing of relief*
This is potentially good news for young folk, but Kelly also said that another thing they’ll be looking to clear up over the next fortnight is the strain’s effect on oldies.
“In South Africa only 5% of the population is over 65. We don’t know what the effect on older people is”.
Next, Kelly was asked by a reporter if a two-week pause on flights would become the norm going forward when a new strain is discovered.
He responded “I can’t say for certain that that’s the case. It comes back to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) assessment.”
Kelly is referring to when on November 26th, the WHO declared Omicron a Variant of Concern.
Though as we’ve said before, the best thing to do is to chill out and not panic.
Mr Hunt finished his speech this morning by saying that while Omicron is “an emerging variant, it’s a manageable variant”.
Stay safe, besties.
